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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. % 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



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THE "TIMES" REVIEW OF MOCLELLAN: 



HIS 



miLITARY CAREER REVIEWED 
AMD EXPOSED. 



[Revised from the N. Y. Times.] 



BY 



WILLIAM SWINTON 

Washinffton Editor N, Y. Times. 






NEW YORK. 
PUBLISHED BY THE N. Y. TIMES. 
1864. 



THE "TIMES" REVIEW OF MOCLELLAN: 



HIS 



MILITARY CAREER REVIEWED 
A]\D EXPOSED. 



f Revised from the N. T. Times.] 



bT 



V ' . 

WILLIAM SWINTON 

If 

WasMngton Editor N. Y. Times. 



NEW YORK. 
3>UBLISHED BT THE N. Y. TIMES. 
1864, 






The following Chapters are a condensation aijci revioion of the series of 
twelve articles in review of McClellan's Reprrt, by William Swintojj, 
published in the New York Times, dmmg the months of Febnuay, March, 
and April, 1S64. In the preparation of this criticism the authcn- has to 
acknowledge the use of a large mass of unpublished offirial documents. 



CONTENTS 



i Page 

I. MeClellan as a Political Strategist 3 

1 1. The " Young Napoleon " 4 

IK. A Hundred and Fifty Thousand Men "in Buckram" 6 

W. The Modern Fahius and his False Pretences 8 

V. "My Plan and Your Plan." 9 

VI. McClellan's Grievance — the Detachment of McDowell's Coi].s IS 

VII. "A Pickaxe and a Spade^ a Spade." = 16 

7III. The Peninsular Campaign 18 

IX. How Pope got out of his ScVape 25 

X. Closing Scenes in McClellan's Career. .29' 



ICCLELLAN'S MILITARY CAREER 

REVIEWED AND EXPOSED^ 



1. 

McCLELLAN AS A POLITICAL STRATEGIST. 

ft is a fact singularly characteristic of General McClellaa that haCving won what*- 
ffver reputation he enjoyo in the field of vjar, he is now running on this reputation 
p,3 the Presidential candidate of a party whose creed is peace and whose platform 
casts contumely on the very war of whi«h their nominee had for upwards of a year 
the chief conduct. When we consider, however, that all his fame is founded on 
defeats, it is not wondeiful that his hopes should still be bound up in defeats. Gen- 
eral McClellan's Presidental proepects brighten just in proportion as our soldiers 
suffer disaster, and be will only be certain of being Presiderit of our country when 
it is certain we have no country at all. 

There is no object more calculated to claim the sympathy of a generous people 
than a defeated general; and unless his failure has been associated with circum- 
stances of p€rsonal tiirpitude he is pretty sure, sooner or later, to receive that sym- 
pathy, Machiavelli, that subtle observer, points out that the Romans never 'blanked 
their unsuccessful commanders, esteeming that to a high-minded man the mortifica- 
tion of defeat was of itself punishment enough. Sertorius, Mithridates and Wil- 
liam of Orange were habitually unsuccessful generals, and yet history has not chosen 
'io cast contumely on their names : on the contrary, the memory of their failiitres is 
■covered up by the remembrance of qualities of mind that deserved, if they cowld not 
command, success. 

It has been left for General McClellan, however, to claim not merely th* sympa- 
thy of his countrymen (which would have been accorded him had his conduct been 
(marked by the modesty of a soldier) but their admiration and higbest.rowards for a 
aeries of exploits in which the country suffered only disastei'. 

General McClellan's candidacy for the Presidency does not begin wath the nomi- 
natiou at Chi<;ago. While his soldiers were being struck down by thousands with 
the fevers of the Chickahominy, the fever of the White House struck him. There 
are a thousand things both in his military career and in hifi subsequent conduct 
that can only be explained on this theory. No doubt he would have been glad to 
(have founded his Presidential pretensions oo success ; but ae, this was not possible 
he early conceived a characteristic change ef base : he determined to found them on 
defeat. He could not make failures triumphs, but he would adventure a flanking 
movement in the field of polities more bold than any he ever essayed on the field 
■of war : he would throw the burden of all his failures upon an Administration wliich 
thwarted all his brilliant plans end ensured defeat where he had organized vic- 
tory ! This desperate enterprise he has attempted to carry though in a document 
published a few months ago, which, under the guise of a " Report," is really an 
elaborate political manifesto. 

Had General McCle-lan not been a prospective candidate for the Presidency, it 
would be difficult to bring his so called " Report " into any known category. If it 
is less than a Report it is also more than a Report It ki 1«S8 than a Report because 
numerous dispatches of the time are omitted from this collectioo. It is also more 
than a strictly military Report, because its basis is an elaborate historical, and 
argumentative recital, in which such dispatches aa are us«l by General AlcOleilan 
«re inlaid. Military Reports ia the sense in which any soldier understands the 



term, are written either from the battle-field itself, or, in the impossibility of th&i;. 
as speedily after the action as it is possible for the staff to collect the requisite data. 
There have been Generals who have seen fit at the close of their career to publish 
their dispatches in collected form. Such a legacy was left to military history by 
the great. Iron Duke. But what is peculiar in Wellington's publication of his dis- 
patches is that he has left these memorials of his career in their strict chronologi- 
cal order, in tiieir exact original state: he has not suppressed a line, nor added a 
word of commentary, nor a word of argument, nor a word of accusation, nor a word 
of justification. 

Not 60 General MeClellan's Report. The labor of a whole twelvemonth, com- 
posed in the leisure of retiracy, and after the publication of most of the materia! 
likely to bear on his fame, its purpose seems less to record a series of military trans- 
actions than to vindicate his conduct and arraign the Administration. No charge- 
is too great, none too small,, to draw out from him a replication : and he is equal- 
ly read}', whether to bring railing accusations against his military superiors, to 
bowl down the Committee on the Conduct of the War, or to blow up the news- 
papers. 

In this state of facts, a ci'itical analysis of this so-called " Report " becomes a mat- 
ter which Cdncerns the welfare of the country not leas than the truth of history. It- 
is to this task I propose addressing myself it will be our duty to pierce to the his- 
torical truth underlying the veneer which General McClellan has spread over events, 
to endeavor to seize by the guiding-clue of unpublished dispatches how much here 
set down as original motive is really afterthought, and to examine the foundation of 
the charges which he heaps upon the Administration. If I do not succeed in prov- 
ing by documentary evidence that every one of General McClellan's failures wa& 
the result of his own conduct and character, — if I do not prove his career as a 
whole to have been a failure unmatched in military history, and if I do not fasteci 
upon him conduct which in nny other country in the world w»uld have caused! 
him to be court-martialed and dismissed the service, — I shall ask the reader to ac- 
cept hie plea in abatement of judgment and accord him the patent of distinguished 
generalship. But if I make giiod all I have said, I shall ask the reader to charac- 
terize in fitting terms tho conduct of a man who, receiving the heartiest support of 
the Government, thelavij^li confidence of the people, and the unstinted resources of 
the nation, achieves nothing hnt defeat, and terminates a career of unexampled fail- 
ure by charging the blame up<<u an Administration whose only fault was not to have 
sooner to discovered his iuctvpaeity. 

IT. 

THE •' YOUNG NAPOLEON."' 

It was the good fortune of General McClellan to come into command while the 
public mind was in a peculi'ar mood. The disastrous upshot of a forward move- 
ment in which the nation was conscious of having used too great urgency had giveci 
rise to complete abnegation of all criticism eu the part of the people and the press. 
Bull Run had educated us, and, in a fit of patriotic remorse, men renounced every- 
thing that might appear like pressu're on the Government or the commanders of our 
armies. 

The nation did more : it literally threw open its arms tc receive the young chief 
chosen to lead its foremost army. He came in with no cold suspicion, but with a 
warm and generous welcome. It will always remain one of the most extraordinary 
phenomena of our extraordinary times that a young man without military experi- 
ence, leaping from a captaincy to the highest grade in our military hierarchy, and 
bringing with him only the prestige of a series of small operations which another 
than he planned and executed,* should have been at one received into the nation's 
confidence and credited in advance with every military quality and capacity. It 
may not be very flattering to our common sense to look back at the time when thia 
hero of unfought fields was taken on trust as a " young Napoleon ;" but it remains, 
nevertheless, a piece of history; and when a few weeks after assuming command, 
he told his soldiers, " We have had our last retreat, we have seen our last defeat — 
yea stand by me and I'll stand by you," a too-eonfiding people applauded the bom- 
bast as having the true Napoleonic ring I 

Beyond a doubt these things showed the military juvenility of America; but they 
were none the less the manifestations of a mood of mind which an able Commander 

* I mean of course General Rosecrans. The Beport of that general, including bis operatiODs is 
Weetem Tirglnia, will, It ie hoped, soon be publUbed. 



oould have turned to immense account. General McClellan had but to ask, and it 
was given him — indeed it came without asking. Every energy of the Government, 
and all the resources of a generous and patriotic people, were lavishly placed at his 
disposal, to enable him to gather together an army and put it in the most complete 
state of eflBciency, so that offensive movements might be resumed at the earliest 
possible moment. The time of that moTem6nt was, however, with a scrupulous 
delacaey left in the hands of the Commander himself. General McClellan com- 
plains of the "vehemence with which an immediate advance upon the enemy's 
works directly in our front was urged by a patriotic people." I am very sure 
that nut only was no "immediate advance" urged, but that no advance at all was 
expected during any portion of the period in which General McClellan says he was 
engaged in organizing the army. " It was necessary," says he,* " to create a new 
army for active operations and to expedite its organization, equipment, and the ac- 
cumulation of the material of war, and to this not inconsiderable labor all my ener- 
.gies for the next tliree months were exerted." As General McClellan assumed com- 
mand of the army in the latter part of July (27 th), the " three months " spoken of 
would bring us to the 1st of November. Now it would not be diflScult to show that 
during no part of that period did the public show anything like " vehemence " for 
an advance. The country understood th-at a new army had to be organized; in- 
deed there was if anything, a disposition to exaggerate both the time required for 
this woi'k and its inherent diflSeulties ; and as a large share of the fame of General 
McClellan r^sts on the theory of his having '' organized " the army, it may be worth 
while making a brief diversion to penetrate into the interior of this awful mystery 
■of organization. 

One would suppose from the tone of General McClellan that when he came to th'S 
Army of the Potomac there was no army to command. " I found," saj's he (page 
44), "no army to command — a mere collection of regiments, cowering on the banks 
of the Potomac, eome perfectly raw, others dispirited by the recent defeat." Now, 
the facts of the case are that he came into command of fifty thousand men, and they 
were very far from being " a mere collection of regiments." The brigade and divi- 
sional organization existed and had existed, having been established by General 
McDowell. The organization of modern armies is a matter long ago fixed, and is 
not an affair which admits either of invention or of innovation. The hierarchy by 
the battalion, brigade, division, and corps, first formulated in the Ord-innance du 
Roi, is the military system of every European nation ; and our own military code is, 
in fact, a translation of it. It is not clear, therefore, how there was room for the 
■exercise of any such mysterious powers of organization as have been attributed to 
General McClellan, and he certainly put forth none. He found the framework of 
'brigades and divisions, and he continued it, simply piling up more brigades and 
more divisions. f There only remained to push the organization one step higher, 
aad that step he did not take. Our regular army having always been very email, 
no higher unit of organization than the division had enisted or had been required. 
What became absolutely necessary as soon as the needs of the war created great 
armies of one or two hundred thousand men was to establish the higher fighting 
unit — the corps d'amnee — without which no laige army can effectively enter upon 
an active campaign. General McClellan would never consent to the establishment oj 
corps. The only novelty of organization, therefore, which it was possible for him 
to institute, he woiald not and did not. He left the arm}' an acephalous agglomer- 
ation of thirteen divisions, without correlation, unity or cohesion ; and it became 
necessary for the President, months afterwards, and in opposition to General Mc- 
Clellan, to constitute corps just as the army was on the point of setting out on an ac- 
tive campaign. 

The period of three months, during which General McClellan, according to his 
•own statement, was engaged in reorganizing the army, having passed, — the Gov- 
ernment aad the nation became naturally anxious that the splendid army of over 
a hundred and fifty thousand men, which had by this time grown up on the banks 
of the Potomac, should be turned to account Our foreign relations, our domestic 
interests, our national honor — every consideration conspired to urge an attack on the 
insolent foe who held the Capital in siege. But during no period of the six months 
succeeding the 1st of November — and during all of which period the motives for an 

— ■ ■ — ■ . .~ . . _ . iH, t ■ — 

* Report, p. 6. 

t Whatever credit is claimed for the practical organization of the army belongs to Brlgadier- 
©eneral (now Major-General) Silas Casey, a painslakiug tactician, who labored with tireless ,ii*- 
Biduity at the task of brigading the newly arrived regiments. The aasumption of the credit of tfc'it 
worK by General MeOlellan is a 'flagrant insUince of He vos non vobia r 

' ' The knight slew the boar. 
The kin|; bad the gloii'«." 



e 

atJvaaee became progreseively more and more imperative' — ala' or ■w-oaiid' G-enerai? 
McClellan cousent to move his army. If there are any considerations that go to 
justify tliis delay, it is only fair to General McClellan that he shall have the benefit 
5>f their full weight, and this subject is worth examining with some fulness, because? 
&here is a close logical connexion between that louginactioa aad all the subsequentt 
ill fortune of the Army cf She Potomac. 

A HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND MEN "IN EUCKRAM." 

There is one characteristic of General McClellan which displays itself so persisi- 
entl}', both in his Report and in his conduct, thals it must belong to the very struc- 
ture of his intellect. What I mean, is a certain ineoijUality of vision which puta 
facts oat of all just relations, gives him one standard of judgment for himself and 
another for others, a-nd leads him to a prodigious over-estimate of immediate, and a 
prodigious und«?-e3timate of remote difficulties. "The first q,ualiScation in a general,^ 
saj's Napoleon, " is a cool head — that is, a head which receives just impressions, and 
estimates things and objects at their real value. Some men are so constituted as to 
see everything th?ough a bigh-eolored raedium. Y/'hateve? knowledge^ o^r talent, 
or courage, or other good qualities audi men may possess, nature has not formed 
them for the command of armies, or the direction of great military operations." 
This key will aid us in the interpretation of that extraordinayy tendency to exag- 
gerate the force of the enemy which we find him displaying at the very outset of 
kis career, and which eontinued to grow upon him throughout its whole course. 

The first instance in wbieh we have a distinct utterance from General McClellan 
on the point of the relative strength of his awn and the enemy's force is in a lette? 
aiddressed by him to the Secrttary cf War in the latter part of October, 1861.* In 
this communication he uses the following language : 

"8omu<;h time has passed, and the winter is approaching so. ra,pidly, that but two courseware 
left to the Government, viz: to go into winter qiuarters, or to assume the oStiumve with force 
greatly inferior in numbers to the army J regarded as desirable and necessary. 

Now, the first question is, what number he regarded as not only "desirable " but 
''necessary" in order to enable him to assume the ofi'ensive. Happily, on this point 
we have from himself precise iufoymation, for ia a subsequent part of the same com- 
munioation he gives what he calls an " estimate of the requisite force for an advance 
movement by the Army of the Potomac." It is as as follows : 

"Column of active operations. 150,000 men, 400 gun&. 

Garrison of the city of Washington 85,000 " 40 " 

To guard the Potomac to Harper's Ferry 5,009 " 12 " 

To guard the Lower I'domac 8,000 " 24 " 

Garrison for Baltimore and Annapolis 10,000 " 12 " 

Total effective force required 208,000 men, 488 gune> 

or an aggregate, present and absent, of about 240,000 mes, should the losses by sickness, &c., no3 
rise to a higiier per centage tlian at present." 

As the strength of an army, like any other means for the accomplishment of a 
certain end, is necessarily controlled by the object to be accomplished and the re- 
sistance to be overcome, we must seek the rationale of the extraordinary estimate pu4 
forth by General McClellan of the military force required as an indispensable condi- 
tion precedent to any offensive operations, in his calculation of the strength of the 
army which the rebels were able to confront him withal. Fortunately on this point, 
also, we are not left in the dark, for he goes on to state that all his information 
showed that in November, 18&1, "the enemy had a force on the Potomac, not less 
than 150,000 strong, well drilled and equipped, ably commanded, and strongly en- 
trenched." 

If it be true that at any period during the fall or winter of 1&61-2, the rebels had 
"on the Potomac" an army of the strength claimed by General McClellan — an army 
of one hundred and fifty thousand men — then we must concede that bis estimate of 
the army he himself needed — namely, an effecting fighting column of the same 
strength— was not excessive, and that his reiterated demands for more men, even 
at this early period, were the result of a wise appreciation of the necessities of the 
case. But if it can be shown that this rebel colossus of a hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men was a monstrous delusion, the figment of a " heat-oppressed brain," we 
shall reqi.ire to find other terms in which to characterize his conduct and his 
clamor. 

*Kepon,p. 8; 



Now, I think I «an show that the rebel army on the Pctcmac, so far from 
"being of the force of 150,000 men, was never more than one-third that number. The 
battle of Bull Run was fought on the part of the rebels with a force of leas than 
thirty thousand men. General Beauregard, in his official report, says : " The effec- 
tive force of all arms of the (Confederate) Army of the Potomac on that eventful 
morning, including the garrison of Camp Pickens, did not exceed 21,833 men, and 
29 guns. Th« Army of the Shenandoah, (Johnston's,) ready f r action in the field, 
may be set down at 6,000 men and 20 guns, and its total strength at 8,834." 

We are then to believe that "the rebel army in the interval of three months, be- 
tween the end of July and the end of October, leaped from thirty thousand men to 
a hundred and fifty thousand! Credat Jtideeusl It is too monstrous to believe. It 
would take double the time even to brigade such a herd of men. It would indeed 
be difficult to say what the precise strength of the rebel force was during tlie period 
referred to, especially as it varied greatly, having attained a certain maximum, 
then declined by the expiration of the term of service, and then commenced to as- 
cend once more when the first conscription came into force. I do not, therefore, 
attempt to do this. I merely desii-e to show that the swelling figures that 
affrighted the soul of the then head of the Army of the Potomac existed only in his 
imagination, and to fis a maximum bej'ond which it is certain the rebel army did 
• ':iot go. 

Daring the autumn of 1861, while the rebel army was still at Cent^rville, a letter 
written from that plaee fell into the hands of the military authorities. The writer, 
referring to the flutter that existed in the ranks of theii" army in regard to the cre- 
ation of a certain number of Major Generals, tells how the Confederate Army was 
•organized into brigades of four divisions each, like ours, but that they only put two 
brigades into a division — that is, they put eight regiments or battalions instead of 
twelve, as we have. "Now," says the writer, "this makes quite a stir as to the 
appointment of the twelve Major Generals." This wo ild give them twenty-four 
brigades, or ninety-eix regiments. The average strength of their regiments at that 
time certainly did not exceed that of our own at the same period, 600 men; and 
this would give them a total of 57,600 men.* 

Now, it is worthy of note that General McClellan hiniself, six months after the 
date of his estimate of the rebel force "on the Potomac," at 150,000 men, givee 
another estimate made by his chief of the secret service corps on the 8th of March. 
in which the rebel troops at Jklanassas, Centreville, Bull Run, Upper Occoquan, and 
vicinity are put down at 80,000. Note that this was after the rebel conscription 
had gone into force and had swelled the Confederate ranks with its harvesting ; and 
that, notwithstanding all this, it gives a i esult less by seventy thousand than the fig- 
ure made out by General McClellan in the month of November. At one stroke the 
rebel huudred and fifty thousand in buckram had dwindled by a half! 

Ftom all these data, I believe I am authorized in concluding that Johnston at 
no time had on the Potomac an army of over 50,000 men. And it was before this cod- 
temptible force that our magnificent army of three times its strength — no. not the 
■army, but its coynmander — stood paralyzed for eight months! Such a spectacle the 
history of the world never before presented. 

Whether General McClellan ever really believed that he had in front of him an 
army of a hundred and fifty thousand men, or anything like that figure, is a point 
which I do nob pretend to determine.| But certain it is that having fixed upon 
this number, all his subsequent efforts seetn to have been directed, not to the task 
of destroying the enemy before him, but of forcing the Government to give him a 
command which he could never have brought into action in any battle-field Vir 



*Tlvere are those, indeed, who put the rebel force on the Potomac at an even lower fjorure. Mr 
Hurlbert, who at this time was within the rebel lines and had access to good sources of Informa- 
tion, says in the notes to his translation of the pamphlet of the Prince de Joinville on the Army <>( 
the Potomac. 

" I have reason to believe that when the history of the present war shall come to be written 
fairly and in fiill, it will be found that General Johnston never intended to hold Manassas and G-etj- 
treville against any serious attaclc ; that his army at those points had suffered trreafly during the 
autumn and winter of lS6t-S, and that from October to March he never had an effctive force oj 
7;ior« </ian 40,000 »!€)!■ under his orders.'' 

t It is possible he did, for it is astonishing the tricks which the fears and the fancies of a man 
thus unhappily organized will play him; and I am willing to believe that General McCIeilaB 
was quite as much deceived as deceiving. It is possible General McClellan really belie,ved the 
rebels had 150.000 men on the Potomac, when they never had a third of that number, just as ii 
is possible lie believed they had one hundred thousand, then two hundred thousand,' then two 
hundred and fifty thousand men on the Peninsula, when the truth was they never had over 70,000 
men— or as he believed they invaded Maryland with a hundred and eighty thousand men, when 
their total force was flfty-five thousand. All this, I say. is possible; but alas for the hapless nM 
tion whose fate was committed to the keeping of swcAa leader i 



ginja fnrnisihea From tbia thne foi-th begins a series of whinings an J whimperrngs 
for troops, the most extraordinary ever put on record. " I have not the force I 
asked for ;" " send me more troops," became the perpetual cry. These, with the 
occasional expression of his determination to " do the best he can" with what pitiful' 
force he had, and to " share its fate," form the staple of every communication. 

Now, when General McClellan was forming this heroic resolve, will any one im- 
agine how much of a force he had ? He had asked for 240,000' men, from which to- 
take a fighting column of 150,000. It is true, he was never able to get this number, 
bnt it is perhaps worth while determining vchat he did get. 

It appears from the official reports that on the morning of the 2'7th October, th& 
aggregate strength of the Army of the Potomac was 168,313 men — present for duty,. 
109,452. On January 1, 1862, it was 219,707— present for duty, 191,430. On Feb- 
ruary 1, it was 222,196 — present for duty, 19'S,14'2. Such was the pitiful bagatelle 
of a force he had under his command! He had asked for 240,000; be could never 
get over 222,19'6; and one can sympathize with hia sense of ill treatment in con- 
sequence. 

We think, however, that we have read of brilliant campaigns and splendid victo- 
ries achieved with something less than two hundred and forty thousand men. If 
we recollect aright Napoleon made his first great Italian campaign with under forty 
thousand men ; fought Austerlitz with forty-five thousand and Marengo with thirty- 
five thousand ; and we think we have heard that Wellington, i-n the whole Penin- 
sular war, never had over thirty thousand ; that Turenne more fi'equently com- 
manded ten thousand than fifty thousand; that Marlborough won Blenheim with 
fifty six tiiousand, and Ramillies with sixty thousand troops; and that Frederick 
the Great eon-iucted the Seven Years' War, sgaiost a co&lition of more than half of 
Europe, with an army never exceeding a hundred thousand men. But they were 
old fogies in those days, and it was left fo-r the " Yoimg Napoleon," who bad never 
handled ten thousand troops in his life, to require double a hundred thousand to fill 
up the measure of hia swelling ambition. 

In fact, the trouble was not that General McClellan had too small a force; he had 
too large a force. He had fashioned a Frankenstein which all his power could nofe 
control — a sword was put into his hand which not only he wa« unable to wield, bui 
which dragged him to the ground. « 

IV. 

THE MODERN FABIUS AND HIS FALSE PRETENCES. 

Were it true that the army put into the hands of General McClelian, instead of 
being twice or thriee the strength of the rebel force on the Potomac, as I have 
shown, was in reality doubly outnumbered by an enemy "not less than 150;000' 
strong, well drilled and equipped, ably commanded, and strongly entrenched ;" the 
fact might well give us cause before passing censure on an inactivity which, how- 
ever deplorable, would still have had much to warrant it. But you have seen how 
this pretence has been swept away by a scrutiny of facts; and I now proceed to 
show that the only remaining eacuses he offers are equally without foundation. 
These are summed up in the following paragraph :* 

"The reeords of the War Department show my anxiety and efforts to assume aetive offensive ope- 
rations in the fall and early winter. It is only jast to say, however, that the iimpreeedented con- 
dition of the roads and Virginia soil would have delayed an advance till February, had the dis- 
cipline, organization, and equipment of the array been as complete at the close of the fall aa wad 
necessary, and as I desired and labored affainst every impediment to maketh«m." 

The first element enumerated is the roads and the weather, the condition of which 
General McClellan tells us was " unprecedented." If there be any inference to be 
drawn from this expression and its context, it is that they were " unprecedentedly" 
bad, for this reason is given in excuse for not moving. Now it is true that the con- 
dition of roads of Virginia during the fall and winter of 1861-2 was "unpreceden- 
ted," but unprecedently good — and this, happily, is not a matter in regard to which 
we are left to the unsure testimony of memory. We have cotemporary evidence 
which establishes the fact by an accumulation perfectly irrefragable. General 
Franklin,-}' testifying under oath to this specific point, on the 26th of December, 
1861, says: " The condition of the roads is good." General Wadsworth,:^ on the 
same day says : " The roads are remarkably good — perhaps not once in twenty years 
have the roads at Christmas been in as good condition as they are Jiow, Having had 

'Eeport, p. 85. 

tKeport on the Conduct of the Wai, vol. 1-, p. 28. 

$lbid,p- I'lH. 



SfiJs 'long perioi of &rg weather, the roads are very good." So General Fitz Jobe 
Porter,* in reply to a query as to the condition of the roads, says : " As far as I 
^know they are in excellent condition, eseellent travelling condition." In like man- 
ner testified a score of officers ; I need not cite their evidence, but will limit my- 
self to the testimony of a rebel witness. Pollard, f in a passage, the sting of which 
is sharpened by its justice, says; "A long, lingering, Indian summer, with roads more 
hard, and skies more beautiful, than Virginia had seen for many a year, invited the 
«nemy to advance. He steadily refused the invitation to a genert.1 action. The ad- 
vance of our lines was tolerated to Munsotfs Hill, within a few miles of Alexandria, 
and opportunities were sought in vain by th« Confederates, in heavy skirmishing, 
to engage the lines of the two armies." 

Precisely the same tendency characterizes General McClellan'a estimate of the 
•comparative condition as of the comparative strength of his own and the enemy's 
army. His communications of the period referred to make frequent mention of the 
superior discipline, drill and equipment of the rebels, and the inferiority in these 
respects of hie own force. Now it is difficult to conjecture on what basis General 
McClellan constantly mak-es this assertion of the superior fighting powers of th« 
, rebels, ualess — with a credulity insulting to the manhood of the loyal States — the 
rebel rhodomontade oa this head had been swallowed entire by him. Abstractly 
considered, they ought to have been not better soldiers but worse ; for though their 
•habits of life and social training had been of .a kind to make them ultimately very 
excellent soldiers, they were calculated to make them very inferior soldiers at the 
outset.;j: And this view of it is fortified by historical testimony.; the evidence of 
all observers .goes to show that previously to the organization of the permanent 
Confederate Army in April and Slay, 1852, and while the provisional army was still 
in existence and officers were elected by the men, nothing could exceed the laxity 
■of discipline, the demoralization of tem|>er, and the inferiority in arms, equipment, 
and transportation, that marked the rebel foree in Virginia. If that force afterward 
'became an army whose formidable valor and superb discipline we have too often 
found out to ©ur cost, it is to be attributed in great part to the time General Mc- 
Clellan gave them for consolidation, and the prestige they gained by their victo- 
ries over him. 

But all comparison is superfluous ; what I say is that General McClellan's claim 
that there was anything in the diselpHae of hie army to prevent his dealing a blow 
at the enemy before him, is a shallow makeshift that will no longer serve. If it 
had been designed to make a Prussian or an English army — a thing of pipeclay and 
pedantry, of the rattan and red tape — there might be some force in the call for 
months or for years, in which to perfect this painful and useless education. But lor 
modern armies there is but one way; it is, after the rudiments of tactics are ac- 
quired, to put the men promptly into the field and let them be made soldiers by the 
hard realities of war. It was in this way, and not by the pedantry of the martinet 
that the armies of the Thirty Years' War, of the American Revolution, and of the 
^eat French Revolution, were farmed. In 181S rough German levies fought almost 
'before they were drilled, and at Bautzen French recruits were victorious over the 
■elaborately trained machines that formed the armies of Austria, Prussia and Russia. 
Disastrous as Bull Run was in its military results, it, beyond a doubt, did more to 
make our men eoldiere than all the reviews, parades, and sham fights, with which 
■General McClellan amused a country whose life and national honor were all the 
while ebbing away. 

I have Eow exhausted the several reasons alleged by General McClellan in excuse 
for his long delay, from August, 1861, to April, 1862. I have ehown that there ie 
nothing in these excuses, whether drawn from the condition of the roads and the 
season, or from the strength and discipline of our own arnsy, or that of the rebels, 
to justify it. No, nol Net all the shallow devices which a year of afterthought 
■can bring to the extenuation of military incapacity can either explain or exculpate 
that fatal delay which gave the rebels their best ally. Time ; which made the timid 
.among us despair, and the proudest hang their heads with shame.; and which 
almost authorized foreign recognition of the rebellion by our seeming inability to 
(nut it down. 

V. 

"MY PLAN AND YOUE PLAN." 

Whether General McClellan ever would have been ready to advance on the ene- 
my, is a problem the solution of which is known only to Omniscience ; but the spell 

^ . ji> 

*Ibid. p. 171. 

-fFirst year of the War, p. 178. 

$Priaoe de Joinville on the Army of tlie Potomac, p. 101. 



10 

was at length broken, not by the motion of McClellan, but by a word of fnftiativ® 
uttered by the I'resident. On the 27th of January, 1862, Mr. Lincoln issued "Gen- 
eral War (Jrder No. 1," directing "that the 22d d^^y of February, 18G2, be the day • 
for a general laovenient of the land and naval forces of the United States agaiuSt 
the insurgent forces.'" 

As the reason for ordering a "general movement" on the day indicated may not be- 
aniversally intelligible and has frequently been made a matter of virondermeat by 
General McClellau's partisans, a word on that head will not be out of place. Shortly 
after coming i'nto command of the Army of the Potoraac, General McClellan began 
to urge that all the armies of the Union should be put under the direction of & 
"single will." In his letter of October, IStJl, addressed to the Secretary of War, 
we find him urging this with tlie utmost emphasis, and even making it aw indispen- 
sable condition of any advance by the Army of the Potomac* 

Action, on any terms, being the supreme desire of the Government, Genaial Mc- 
Clellan was, on the 1st of November, inves-ted with the control of the armies of 
the United States as General-in-Chief. Bewildering though one finds the retrospect 
of such impotence of ambition as inspired this man to take on his pigmy shoulders- 
a burden v/hich a colossus like Napoleon never attempted to b«ar — the task of at 
once personally dire«ting the o]>€ratiou of an army of two huD<ii-ed thousand men 
in an active campaign, and superintending the advance of half a dozen other ar- 
mies arrayed along a front of five or six thou&and miles — it remai:is, nevertheless, a 
fact of history. 

Having been vested with the cantrol of all the armies of the Republic, General 
McClellan conceived the \A&u. of a siinaltaneoiis advanoe of all these forces — a plan, 
which considering that the several armies were, as I have said, distributed along: 
a front of five or six thovisand miles, with lines of operation running through differ- 
ent climates and varying weather, was as impossible as it was puerile. At the wave 
of the baton of the mighty maestro the whole vast orchestra was to strike up. 
Until then, let all men hold there peace! In a word, we have hei'e the tirst draft 
of that famous " anaconda" strategy, which pljvnted a dozen differgnt armies on a& 
many lines of operation^ all on the exteiior circumference of the rebellion, leaving 
the rebels the enormous advantage of their interior position and giving them ampio 
time to fortify at every point. 

And it was in view of this favorite plan of General Mc£/lellan f&r a simulianeoux- 
advance along the whole line that t!ie above Executive order diraeting a " general 
movement" on the 22d of February was issued. f 

An advance having at length been decided ®n, it remained to determine the line 
by which this advance should be made, being in mind the double objective of — 1st, 
the rebel army at Manassas^ and 2d, the rebel capital, Richmond. 

It is quit© certain that up to November General McClellan held no other view of 
a forward movement than a direct advance on the enemy before him. At whati 
time and by what ce-uusels he altered his miad in this regard are points on which 
we have no information. But a change of purpose had meantime taken place, and 
when the President, four days after the promulgation of this General Order for an 
advance, issued Special War Order No. 1, directing a fianking movement on the 
rebel position at Manassas, it immediately appeared that he and General McClellaE- 
had different views in regard to the line of operations to be taken up. 

Against this proposition General McClellan set hisl'aca with a determination much 
stouter than the logic which he employed to support that determination. Having 
obtained permission to submit his objections to the plan, we find a long letter from 
him addressed to the Secretary of War, under date of February 3,:j: in v;hich the 
question of the comparative advantages of a movement on the enemy at Manassas, 
or a transfer of his aimy to a base on the lower Chesapeake, is elaborately dsscus- 
sed. This is a problem of capital importance, and so I shall enter with some ful- 
aess into the analysis of his reasoning — endeavoring not to omit a single point of 
any weight or value. 

At the outset of his discussion of a movement on the enemy at Manassas, b}' the 
rebel right flank, General McClellan makes certain admissions as to the advantages- 
of such an attack, to which I call the particular attention of tha freaper, for J 
regard them as decisive of the whole question as to the comparative advantage of 
an attack on Manassas, or a transfer of base to any point on the lower Chesapeake. 
He admits that an attack on the rebel right Hank by the line of the Occocjuan would 

* P^t^port. page 6T. 

t General McClellen had pnimiscd, if made General-in-Chief, to assume the offensive before tia 
25lli of November. I need hardly aay that this promise was- a» little kept as- all hisothera, 
t Raport,, pages 4&-4S. 



■ li 

•*iprevent-ifhe"ji3neticm of the enemy's right with his centre," aftording the opp.atn- 
siity of destroying the former; would " remove the obstructions to the navigation 
of the Potomac ;" would '^reduce thelenghth of wagon transportation,"' and would 
■"" strike direcUi/ at his main railvay co'inrmmicGtioK.." 

Assuming the euccessful execution of this plan what would have been the result? 
Let General McClellan answer himself: 

" AssKining the success of this operation, and the defeat of the enemy es certain, the questioa 
;at once arises as to the importance of the results gained. I think these results would be confined 
to the possession of the fisld of battle, the evacuation of the line of the upper Potomac by the ene- 
my, and the moral effect of the victory; important results, it is true, but not decisive of the war, 
□or securing the destruction of the enemy's mnin army, for he eould fall back upon other positions, 
and fight us again and again, should the condition of his troops permit." 

A tactical victory in the field, the compulsory retreat of the enemy from his cher- 
ished position, the relief the blockade of the Potomac, and the " mcral effect of th^ 
mctory" with the losses, disasters, and demoralization that would have been inflict- 
ed on them — all of which General McClellan admits were within his grasp, by the 
(movement indicated — w&re surely well worth the effort. Why, considering 
what a priceless boon such a result would have been at that time, the whole nation 
would have called him blessed! But it would not have been " decisive of tlie war" 
— such was the wildly puerile ambition that poBsessed him; and in order to end the 
war, he resolved to seek a theatre where it was perfectly evident 'oeforehand and 
t)ecame a sad matter of fact afterwardj that he would find all the obstacles there 
were at Manassas with none of its advantages. 

This theatre of war was some point on the lower Chesapeake bay, either Urbana 
•on the Rappahannock or Fort Monroe. The advantages of this base, according to 
Mc'Clellan'G reasoning, is that "it affords the shortest possible land route to Rich- 
•mond, striking directly at the heart of the enemy's power in the East," and that 
"the roads in that region are passable at all seasons of the year." 

It is ow this eiior'moiis assumption that he bases the whole plan of campaign ! He 
sproposes to embark his troops at Alexandria, go down the Chesapeake bay, and up 
•the Rappahannock to Urbana, or down to Fortress Monroe, with the viev/ of there 
'finding a passage to Richmond, where the roads would be '-passable at all seasons." 
It is hard to tell where to begin answering a statement like that. How did he know 
the roads there were " passable at all seasons? " It would certainly be natural to 
conclude, from the mere physical geography of the region, that the roads are not 
'''passable at all seasons." We have there precisely the physical conditions to 
make impascable roads — a region on the drainage and "divides" of rivers, wher-e 
the streams, losing their force, spread out in swamps and bogs. Eut if, going be- 
jfond theoretical eotsiderations, General MeCIelkn bad taken the trouble to look at 
the map, he would have noticed, on the march of fifty miles from Urbana to Rich- 
oiond, the " Bragon .Swamp," and half doren other swamps, besides the Famunky 
tthe Matapony, and the Chickaliominy. On the Peninsula w« need not say he would 
6ave found ; we knew what he did find. It is melancholy to think that the fate of 
a campaign should bs intrusted to a mind capable of such stupendous assumptions. 
The fact of the matter is, McClellan' s mind had already broken down before the 
problem given hhn to solve, his courage had oozed out, and in this mood he was vrilling 
lie look anywhere, anywhere away from the task before him. But it was not long be- 
•fore he practically demonstrated that, in transferring his base from Washington to 
the lower Chesapeake, he merely shifted, but did not remove the difficulty. Gcelum 
<!ion animvjiK 'mutant qid trans mare currimt. In running " across the sea," indeed, 
he changed his "sky," but not the task imposed upon him. It still met him in tlwi 
?face as knotty and more knotty than before. It was with a quite prophetic coa- 
sciousness of this feet that President Lincoln, on the same day as that on which 
'General McCellan's letter is dated, sent to him the following note : 

Eebotjtivb Mansion, Washington, Feliruary 8, 1662. 

My Dear S:r: ¥ou and I have distinct and different plans for a movement of the Army of the 
Potomac. Tours to be done by the Chesapeake, up the Rappahannock to Orbana, and across land 
•to the terminus of the railroad on the Fork river ; mine to move directly to a point on the raii- 
<road southwest of Manaeeas. 

If you v/ill give satisfactory ensvcFG to the follov/ing questions, il shall gladly yield my plan to 
f/ours : 

1. Does not .your plan invole a greatly larger expenditure of timxi and money thf.n mine? 

5.. Wherein is a victory more certain by your plan than mine? 

3. Wlierein is a victory more maluahle by your plan than mine? 

In fact, would it not be te.s.? valuaide in this: that it would break no great line of the enemy's 
isommunication, while mine would? 

■6. In case of disaster, would not a retreat be more diflEcult by your plan than mine? 

Tours, truly, ABHAHAM LINCOLN. 

The s?^aeity of theee queries is cot less conspicuous than tho compendious com- 



12 

pletemess with which they cover the whole ground. Tliey were never Ens-wfred' 
simply because they were and are unanswerable. But President Lincoln, feeling 
the weight of the maxim, that a general will do better following an inferior plaa 
which is his own than a superior one which is the conception of another, and, above 
all, desirous that so7ne move should be made, and willing to sacrifice any minor coa- 
sideration to that end, allowed General McClellan to have his own way. 

That general and his partisans hare a great deal to say about the supposed inter- 
ference on the part of the authorities at Washington with his plans and purposes, 
and no opportunity is lost to give currency to the notion that it was the intermed- 
dling of a species of " Aulic Council " at Washington which caused those failures 
which a juster criticism is compelled to lay at the door of his own military incapa- 
city. This subterfuge will no longer serve, for the evidence of his own report, when 
carefully collated, utterly explodes- this claim. It is a fa<;t worthy of note that tho 
investigations of modern German historians have conclusively proved, that the vitu- 
peration which an intense partisanship east upon the Austrian Aulic Council, and 
which has passed into and long held a place in the acceptance of history, is itst-lf 
utterly without foundation, and some degree of historical justice is now done a 
body which bade fair to <^njoy a maligned immortality. But it needs no nice his- 
torical criticism to show that the shallow claims of the same sort, put forth to ex- 
tenuate McClellan's blunders, are even more baseless. If the President, as the Con- 
stitutional head of the army, is blameable in any aspect of his dealings with that- 
general, it is because he abnegated himself too much — surrendered too much of his 
own authority, and gave into the bands of an untried man a power little short of 
the despotic. While history will recognize that the actuatrng motive in this was an- 
unselfish ai d patriotic desire to leave General McClellan untrammeled liberty of 
action, it is questionable whether it will not at the same time condemn the Presi- 
dent's surrender of his own convictions. 

But while Genera) McClellaa was making his preparations for the withdrawal of 
his army to Annapolis, he was saved all further trouble on this head by a raovemenfc 
on the part of the Confederates, no less startling th^n their retirement from their 
fortified position at Manassas and on the Potomac. 

The withdrawal of the rebels from the line of Manassaa, Centreville, and the 
lower Potomac began in February, was completed on the &th of March, and became- 
known to General McClellan and the Cabinet on the following day. The action 
taken by McClellan i n this event was most extraordinary. In place of sending s, 
light movable column to take up a prompt pursuit of the rebels, with the view o? 
harassing their rear, be waited till two daya after their definite withdrawal, and then 
instituted a general movement of the whole army, not with any adequate military 
view, and with no purpose of attempting to make up with the rebels, but, as \\& 
says, for the purpose of giving the troops "an opportunity to gain some experience 
o-n the march and bivouac preparatory to the campaign" — a kind of education of' 
whick, truly, they stood in great need.* 

To any commander not hopelessly wedded to a preconceived idea, the withdrawal 
of the rebels from Manassas behind the Rapidan, before a single man had been 
shipped for the new base, would have suggested the wisdom and e-veu the necessity- 
of a change of plan. All the conditions under v/hich the purpose of a ti'ansfer of 
the army to Urbana or the Peninsula was formed were changed by that event. The 
cardinal conception in making a flank movement by water was the hope which 
General McClellan entertained of being able to reach a point on the line of retreat 
of the rebels or to reach the front of Richmond before they could* — circumstances 
under which they would doubtless have given battle with great disadvantage. 

The move of the enemy ought to have suggested to General McClellan that, 
whatever their pui'pose was, it was next to certiain that they would be in force tc^. 
meet him at whatever point of the coast he might choose to land. It should have 
suggested to him that all opportunity of making an offensive manauvrs was now 
atend, and that all he could no-w hope to do was to make a transfer of base. 
It suggested to him none of these things. It simply suggested to him to change 
the proposed coast expedition. To make Urbana, on the Rappahannock, after the 
rebels had retired behind that river, was out of the question, for if he might hope, 
under cover of the navy, to effect a landing, it would certainly not be possible for 
him to debouch from his point of debarkation. Under these circumstances the line 

•The Prince de Joinville calls this movement to Manassas and baclv again '• a promenade "—a. 
(»ood name lor it, but the most senseless and aimless " promenade " ever conceived bv a general 
in the midst of actual war. The '• promenade" gave the soldiers an opportunity of seeing for 
Iheoiselvcs the pitiful obstacles of quaktr guns and one-horse unarmed earthworks that had so 
long afrighted the soul of their general, though the esporience we are sure, did not conie liOTaia- 
M) ttjose brave men without profound mortification and disgust. 



13 

of tbe Peninsula — ^^vliich he had before spoken of as one promising " less celerity 
and brilliancy of result," and only to be adopted in case "the worst came to the 
vrorst " — remained ; and this he immediately chose. 

But I shall show that this decision was made under circumstances that brought 
him into direct conflict with the President's most explicit orders touching the safety 
of Washington, and in palpable and most inexplicable violation of the conditions 
which the council of corps commanders adjudged essential to any movement by the 
line of the Peninsula. I shall further show that this decision forms the initial 
point of all his subsequeot disasters in that hapless campaign. 

McCLELLAirS GRIEVANCE— THE DETACHMENT OF McDOWELL'S CORPS. 

While Mr. Lincoln was disposed to waive his judgment with regard to the stra- 
tegic mtrits of the two plans of advance on the enemy, he by no means felt at liber- 
ty to permit General McClellan to proceed in the execution of his movement by 
water without placing him under ?uch conditions as should remove as much as pos- 
sible the danger of an assault upon the capital by the enemy. And yet even here 
be did not undertake to decide as a military man, upon the force which might be 
necessary for the safety of Washington, but referred that question to the concurrent 
opinion of General McClellan and the four Generals in command of the four army 
corps into which the Army of the Potomac had been divided, simply stipulating 
that no change of base of the Army of the Potomac should be made without 
leaving such a force in and about Washington as should leave the Capital entirely 
secure, not merely in the opinion of General McClellan himself, but in the ophtion 
also of all the four Generals in command of the four army corps constituting the 
army.* This obliged him to hold a conference with these commanders, in the 
course of which they consented to the proposed movement by the Peninsula on cer- 
tain specific conditions, to which I invite the particular attention of the reader. 
They are as follows — to wit: 

1st. That the enemy's vessel Merrimac can be neutralized. 

2d. That the means of transportation, sufficient for an immediate transfer of the force to its new 
base, can be ready at Washington and Alexandria to move down the Potomac ; and 

3. That a naval auxiliary force can be had to silence, or aid in silencing, the enemy's batteries 
on York Eiver. 

9th. That the force be left to cover "Washington shall be such as to give an entire feeling of secu- 
rity for its safety from menace. (Unanimous.) , , . . . 

II. If the foregoing cannot be, the army should then he moved against the enemy, behmd the 
Rappahannock, at the earliest possible moment, and the means for constructing bridges, repairing 
railroads and stocking them with materials sufficient for supplying the army, should at once be 
collected for both the Orange and Alexandria and Aquia and Bichmond Railroads. (Unanimous.) 

N. B. That with the forts on the right bank of the Potomac fully garrisoned, and those on the 
left bank occupied, a covering force, in front of the Virginialineof 25,000 men would suffice. (Keyes, 
Heintzelman and McDowell.) A total of 40,000 men lor the defence of the city would suffice, 
(Sumner.) 

In the interpretation of these opinions of the corps commanders, it must neces- 
sarily be supposed that the three Generals who concurred in opinion, intended that 
all the fortifications around Washington should be " manned " or " occv pied," and 
that, over and above this, there should be a distinct unit of force capable of being 
moved, of twenty -five thousand men. As three of the Generals concurred in this 
opinion the opinion of the fourth may be thrown out of view, although it is not cer- 
tain whether his opinion was intended to apply to a movable force over and above 
the garrisons, or to include the garrisons in his estimates of forty thousand men. 

It is evident that the opinion of th« three agreeing Generals was for McClellan 
the regulating opinion, with which he was bound to comply in carrying out the 
order of the President. 

Now it is remarkable that, in October, when he contemplated a forward move- 
ment, he estimated the force necessary to be left in and about Washington, at thirty- 
five thousand men; and this, be it observed, when the proposed movement contem- 
plated the presence of the main body of the artny in front of the Capital, availabj^e 
in its protection and defence. If this force of tliii ty-five thousand men was deemed 
necessary by General McClellan, as the proper garrison of Washington, when the 
whole army was expected to be engaged in front of the Capital, much more would 
this force be necessary when the proposed movement looked to the removal of the 
main body of the army to the Peninsula, far beyond the possibility of being imme- 



* President's General War No. 3, Report, p. 53. 



24 

<3iately available for the defence of Washington, should the movements of the enemy 
endanger tlie Capital. 

The conclusion is rrresistible, therefoie, ftbat General McClellnn was beund by th* 
President's order to leave, as the garrison of the forts around Washington, not les3 
than thirty-five thousand men; and over and above this a noovable unit of force,, 
or, in other Avords, an army of twenty five thousand men, without taking into con- 
sideration the troops necessary for the defence of Baltimore or Harper's Ferry, or 
the guards along the Potomac, botli above and below Washington ; for the garri- 
sons necessary- for these places were all estimated for separately i" his report of 
October, 1861'. 

It is plain from this statement, the verity of which is matter of official record, that 
when General McClellan received the order of the 8th of March, and had obtained! 
the opinion of the four Generals, as just stated, his first dutt/ was to ccmtpb/ with the 
Fresideid's order as a condition, prior to issuing any order himself in furtheranee of 
his plan of a campaign on the Peniusula. He should first have designated the 
troo|)s necessary for the security of Washington, not according to his own individ- 
ual judgment, but in conformity with the opinions of the four Generals, or of the 
three which concurred in opinion. His next point of duty was to consider whether 
his remaining force, after deducting the force designated for the security of Wash- 
ington, would be such as to justify him in undertaking a campaign by his proposed 
line: and if he thought it was n(;t, it vms Ms plain duty to represent the ease to the 
President before giving any orders, having in view his propissed campaign. 

If General McClellan had taken this course, v/hich both candor and duty required, 
he would have been -spared the painful position of being in the wrong in the con- 
flict which ensued, consequent on the necessity which his conduct had devolved 
upon the President, of making good his own orders, after General McClellan left 
Washington for the Peninsula, for it was not until after his departure that the Pres- 
ident became acquainted with the fact that, should McClellan's orders be carried 
out, his own express orders would be disobeyed : that is, Washington, or the fortifi- 
cations around it, would not be manned as required, in the opinion of the three 
Generals, nor would there be a covering army of twenty-five thousand men, as- 
required by the same opinion. On the contrary, it was discovered that the amount 
of force leit in and about Washington, and in front of it, at Warrentou and at other 
points, /e//! short of t^eenty thousand men, most of them being new troops, and though 
not disorganized, they were by no means organized, as was clearly set forth in oiii- 
eial statements, and the force fell short numerically of that which he was required 
to leave by some forty thousand men!* 

Not, as I have said, till aft^'r General McClellan's departure did the consequence 
of his disingenuous conduct, which left the Capital of the nation in a condition 
almost to be taken by a single coup dc main, become apparent. It then became 
the President's imperative duty to take measures to secure the end which General 
McClellan had so grossly neglected, and he did so in the following order : 

Adjutant-Gknicral'b Offise, April 4, 1S62. 
By direction of the President, General McDowell's army corps has been detached from the 
force under your immediate command, and the General is ordered to report to the Secretary 
of War. Letter by mail. 

L. THOMAS, Adjutant-General. 
General McClellan. 

If the exposition already given has the force and the truth, and the force of 
truth which I think belong to it, it will have been made apparent that it was 
General McClellan's own neglect of the command of the President, embodying 
the opinions of the Corps Commanders, that drew upon him the consequences, 
whatever they were, of the above order for the detention of McDowell's Corps — 
an order which was issued for no other reason than because General McClellan had 
failed in his duty, and thereby, in the judgment of all men, the facts being 
known, was precluded from all right of comment upon the President's order, and 
he himself must be held responsible for whatever consequences resulted from that 
order. 

1 sta'.e this simply to establish the principle in the case; but I shall, in the 
.^equei, demonstrate that the consequences of McDowell's detention were by no 
means as important as General McClellan is disposed to allege, because, of the three 
divisions of McDowell's Corps Franklin's was sent to him immediatelj?, and McCall's 

* If Gontral McC^lclIan made tlie full and fair report of all the transactions of this period which a 
decent respect for the truth of history demands, he would have inserted at this point the report the 
General \Ya<lsworth, Military Governor of Washington, on the strength and condition of tlie force 
left lor llie defence of the (."apilal — a document which was certainly accessible to him. It will be 
found at p 816 (Vol. 1) of the Report on the Conduct of the War. 



15 

in ample time to participate in th« battles before Richmond ; I shall demonstrate 
that, had McDowel's entire Corps been sent to him at the time that Franklin's di- 
vision was forwarded, General MeClellan could have made no use of it, for reasons 
which will appear at the proper time ; and' I shall demonstrate that McDowell's 
force at Frederieksburgh was quite as useful to General MeClellan as it would have 
been if sent to him, since its presence threatening Richmond called off an equal por- 
tion of the eaemy's force, which he would otherwise have had in his fiont. 

Another point must here be explained, having some connection in General Mc- 
Clellan's mind, with the action of the President in the detention of McDowell's 
Corps, and it is this : There was among the troops in front of "Washington, consti- 
tuting a portion of the Army of the Potomac, a dvision of about eleven thousand 
men, under the command of General Blenker. Shortly before the departure of Gen 
«ral MeClellan for the Peninsula, the President had a personal interview with him, 
in which he expressed his desire to send that division to what was called the Mouu 
tain Department, in Middle Virginia, with the view of enabling General Fremont to 
move a co-operating column in conjunction with the advance of the army of the 
Potomac. General MeClellan was opposed to the movement of that division, but 
finally acquiesced in it. In his allusion to this interview with the President, Gen- 
eral MeClellan states that the President assured him no further reduction of his 
army destined for the Peninsula should be made ; and he then refers to the order 
detaining McDowell's Corps as a violation of the expressed promise made by the 
President. 

"The President," says he, "having promised, in an interview following his order of March 31, 
withdrawing Blenker's division of 10,000 men from my command, that nothing of the sort should 
be repeated — that I might rest assured that the campaign should proceed, with no further deduc- 
tions from the force upon which its operations had been planned, I may confess to having been 
shocked at this order, " etc.* 

In this "fine frenzy " there is a sad want of ingenuous statement; for General Me- 
Clellan knew, he could not but have known, that the promise referred to must have 
been made by the President, iviih the implicit understanding that his oimi orders 
touching the security of Washington would be carried out. The President placed too 
much leliance upon General McClellan's sense of duty and propriety to intimate 
a doubt as to his faithful obedience to his very pointed and written orders, looking 
to the security of the capital. Under these circumstances General MeClellan had 
Bo right to appeal to the promise of the President, except in terms of humility for 
the attempt to practice a deception upon the high functionary who made it, whose 
relations to the Commander of the Army of the Potomac was necessarily of so con- 
fidential a character as to make the utmost candor on the part of the subordinate 
a duty of the first importance ; for it cannot be expected of the Chief Magistrate of 
a great people to watch with jealous suspicion the chief officers in cora.iiand of his 
armies, lest they should deal covertly with him in their execution of his proper or- 
ders. If an evasion of duty is an offence of the most shameful character in any 
subordinate towards his superior, utterly subversive of all discipline in an army, 
and destructive of its efficiency, much more is this a crime of the first magnitude 
in a general officer, op whose unity of action with the purposes of his superior the 
success of an army almost entirely depends. 

I now proceed to the consideration of the other condition, the fulfillment of 
which was, in the opinion of the Corps Commanders, an essential prior to any move- 
ment by the line of the Peninsula. It is the following terms, to wit: "That the 
enemy's vessel, the Merrimac, can be nutralized." On this point the opinion of 
the Corps Commanders was unanimous. 

It is hardly conceivable how General MeClellan could disregard the warning oi 
his four Generals on this point, and undertake his expedition in spite of the know- 
ledge which he must himself have had of the power of the Merrimac.\ It is true 
that General MeClellan drew from Commodore Goldsborough a declaration that he 
could neiUralize the Merriinac. But this opinion went no further, as Generol Me- 
Clellan ought to have known, that an assurance that, with the aid of the Monitor, 
and of his other navnl vessels, he could prevent the Merrimac from leaving Eliza- 
beth River, or, at all events, prevent her passing by Fortress Monroe into Chesa- 
peake Bay. 

But in order to do this, that is, in order to "neutralize " the Merrimac. Gent^ral 
MeClellan must have known that the power of Commodore Goldsborough wax itself 
neutralized by Ihe Merrimac; so that it was impossible foi' the navy at Foitress Mon- 

* Report p. 56. 

t The written instructions of the confederate navy department to the commanders of the 
Merrimac show that he was under orders to pass out bejond Fortress Monroe and destroy Mc- 
Clellan's water transportation in Chesapeake Bay. 



16 

roe to give General McClellan any effectual aid, either on tlie James or York rivere, 
the presence of the navy, as just intimated, being necessary to watch the Merrimac. 
It is important to understand fully this state of things, because General McClellan 
complains, in his Report, of the want of assistance from the navy, when, in point of 
fact, he had no right to count upon it, and would have had no right even if his four 
Generals had not warned him of the dangerous power of the Merrimac. The navy 
was doing all it possibly could do in covering his water line of communications, and 
had no force left with which to perform any other worii. This he ought to have 
known and no doubt he did know it, and hence I say his complaints on this head 
are not ingenous. They are the resort and the after- thought of a defeated General, 
whose failure was due to himself; but who has sought in this so-called "Report" 
to throw the responsibility upon others. 

The result of this reasoning is, I think, to show that not one of the conditions 
defined by the council of Corps Commanders as essentials, prior to the adoption of 
the Peninsula route, was complied with by General McClellan. He neither left 
Washington secure, nor secured the neutralization uf the Merrimac, nor secured 
the co-operation of the navy. In absence of these requirements, his plain duty was 
the adoption of the other alternative agreed upon by the Corps Commanders in the 
following terms: " If the foregoing cannot be, the army should then be moved against 
the enemy behind the Rappahannock at the earliest possible mcyment." But this Gen- 
eral McClellan did not do. He had determined to move the army to the Peninsula, 
and in doing so, he took upon himself the responsibility of all the results that grew 
out of his disobedience of orders. 

Yet you will presently see him turning round and with incredible effrontery 
charging bad faith and the blame of his failures on those he had thus grossly de- 
ceived. And from that day to this he and his following have made the withholding 
of McDowell's corps his gi'eat grievance — the gravamen of all their charges against 
the Administration — the convenient pack-horse on which to place that burden of 
defeat that will bear him down to a historic infamy ! 

VII. 
"A PICKAXE AND A SPADE, A SPADE f" 

There is now, I suppose, not the shadow of a doubt that had the Army of the 
Potomac been simply allowed to walk on up the Peninsula, it would have been able 
to walk over all the force which General Magruder had to oppose it. It is now known 
how contemptible that force was. General Magi'uder's official report* of his opera- 
tions on the Peninsula shows that his whole army consisted of eleven thousand 
men ; of these, six theusand were useless to him, being placed in garrison at Glou- 
cester Point, Mulberry Island, etc. "So that it will be seen," adds he, " that the 
balance of the line, embracing a length of thirteen miles, was defended by about 
five thousand men." What is now a matter of certainty was then a matter of 
shrewd conjecture. General Wool, whose position at Fortress Monroe gave him 
every possible information regarding the enemy, repeatedly represented to General 
McClellan how trifling the rebel force was and begged him to push on before the rebels 
should have time to concentrate. Disposing his feeble force with admirable skill, 
moving it about from point to point, and putting forth the wiles and strategems of 
war he succeeded in so frightening General McClellan that, after a single reconnois- 
sance, he sat down to — dig. ''To my utter surprise," says General Magruder, "he 
permitted day after day to elapse without an assault. In a few days the object of 
his delay was apparent. In every direction, in front of our lines, through the in- 
tervening woods, and along the open fields, earthworks began to appear." Of simi- 
lar tenor is the conversation reported by Col. Fremantle, of the Coldstream Guards, 
who met General Magruder in Texas last sumner.f " He (Magruder) told me," he 
says, "the different dodges he had resorted to, to blind and deceive MeClellan as to 
his strength; and he spoke of ilie intense relief and amusement with which heat 
length saw that General, with his magnificent army, begi7i to break ground before 
miserable earthworks defended only by 8,000 men." 

Grimly amusing though tiir, retrospect of such a spectacle is, it involves 
a great deal that is much too humiliating to permit our entirely appreciating 
it Shirking the duty of moving on the rebels at Manassas, General McClellan 
sought the Peninsula with the express view of making a "rapid and brilliant" cam- 
paign. His first measure in execution of this campaign is to sit down before the 

* Confederate Reports of Battles, page 55T. t Three Months in the Southern States. 



17 

five thousand rebels present to dispute his progress. All that can possibly save this 
from being hereafter esteemed a bit of monstrous burlesque, is that it is vouched for 
by the irrefragable evidence of history ! 

If the defensive line which the rebels had constructed across the Isthmus, from 
Yorktown along the line of the Warwick, was really a position of the enormous 
strength claimed by General McClellan, I can only say that he should have taken 
this element into account when he determined on his plan of campaign. It is a 
lame and impotant excuse for him to put forth that he did not know the rebels had 
a fortified position on the Peninsula, that he was wholly ignorant of the nature of 
the topography, that he was not aware that the Warwick river ran in the direction 
it does, and that he found the roads in a horrible condition. He was repeatedly 
forewarned that he would find fortifications on the Peninsula jnst as well as at Ma- 
nassas ; but with that extraordinary levity of mind that characterizes him, he in- 
sisted on seeing all rose-colored in the distance, and, exemplifying perfectly the 
Latin saying, Omne ignotiim pro maguifico, the less he knew of the nature of the 
theatre of war he was about to seek (and he after confessed it was an unknown re- 
gion to him) the more allurements it had for him. 

But without denyieg that the position which the rebels held across the Isthmus 
was one naturally strong, I deny utterly and altogether that that it presented 
anything which need have been any considerable obstacle to the advance of the 
overwhelming numbers of the Army of the Potomac. The line held by the rebels 
— the general line of the Warwick, which heads within a mile of Yorktown — was 
defended by a series of detached redoubts connected by rifle-pits, and it was not less 
than thirteen miles in extent. Now, all experience proves that a line so extended 
is only formidable when the works are fully manned, and there is present, beside, 
a moveable force, capable of rapid concentration at any point the enemy may assail. 
The very length of such a line becomes its weakness ; there must be some point at 
which it can be forced; and this, once done, the works become a disadvantage, 
rather than a defence.* 

On the point of the absolute necessity devolving upon McClellan to assault the 
works at Yoi-ktown, the moment he reached and reconboitered them, there is, in- 
deed, no room for argument. Any one who will inspect the map will see the read- 
iness with which the line of the Warwick might have been forced, and, this once 
done, Yorktown was tur7ied. And this is the proper place to mention an incident 
touching the true details of which General McClellan is as reticent as he always is 
touching anything which in the smallest degree tells against himself One of the 
division commanders occupying a point where he knew he could, force the enemy's 
line, sent a portion of his command, chiefly Vermont troops, to cross a dam which 
the rebels had constructed, and assault their position. This they did, and gallant- 
ly advancing under heavy fire, actually took possession of the rebel works. But 
this was all contrary t© General McClellan's favorite system of regular approaches, 
and would have proved that the President's i-ecommendation to pierce the enemy's 
line, instead of being "simple folly," as McClellan pronounced it, was the highest 
wisdom. It must have been for this reason — for there is no other to be found — that 
the brave fellows who had been guilty of this brilliant irregularity, were left utter- 
ly without support, and were finally forced to fall back with serious loss! I sup- 
pose there is but one man in the world who will not now admit that the "folly " 
in the siege of Yorktown rested, as it so often does, exclusively where the timidity 
belonged — and that man is General McClellan. And if it will add anything to the 
completeness of this demonstration to say that the rebels never expected to hold 
Yorktown, we have their own testimony to that effect. Mugruder rightly describes 
the impression General McClellan's conduct produced when he speaks of the "in- 
tense amusement and delight with which he at length saw that general begin to 
break ground before miserable earthworks defended by a feeble force of eight thou- 
sand men." 

But if the rebel force was feeble at the outset and not in condition to off"er any 
serious resistance to an even moderately vigorous attack, it was quite certain that 
it would not long be allowed to remain so. The enemy, finding unexpectedly that 
they could hold the Army of the Potomac in check until a secondary defensive 
line nearer Richmond could be prepared, would have shown an inbeeility which 
they have never displayed, had they not done so. The high probability that they 

♦Military history presents no more formidable fortified lines than those of Mehaigne and Bou- 
chain, and yet Marlborough forced these, thongh defended by a superior force; and if this could 
be done in the case of positions held by a superior force, what shall we say of a line held by 
five thousand against over a hundred thousand. The comparison, in fact, is as ludicrous as it 
would be to compare the one general with the other— I mean, of course, a Marlborough 
with a McClellan. 



18 

would both reason and act in this way seems to have been duly appreciated by the 
President, who communicated this impression to General MeClellan in numerous 
dispatches, of which the fc^llowing of Apiil 6th, is a sample : "You now have over 
one hundred thousand troops with you, independently of General AYool's command. 
I think you had better break the enemy's line from Yorktown to Warwick river at 
once. They will probably use time as advantageously you can." So again, three 
days afterward: " By delay, the enemy will relatively gain upon you; that is, he 
will gain faster by fortifications and reinforcements, than you can by reinforcements 
alone." Never wiis utterance more prophetic ; for, says General Magruder, in his 
ofRcial report: ''Through the energetic action of the (Confederate) government, re- 
inforcements began to pour in, and each hour the Army of the Peninsula grew 
stronger and stronger until anxiety passed from my mind ns to the result of an attack 
upon us." With these facts, it is submitted to the reader whether we are not justi- 
fied in connecting by the closest logical bond of antecedent and consequent this fa- 
tal delay and all the disastrous results of the campaign on the Peninsula? 

At length, after a month of delay, the rebels, whether ashamed of themselves at 
putting the grand Army of the Potomac to such unnecessary trouble, or because the 
position of McDowell'corps at Fredericksburg became too serious a menace to Rich- 
mond, withdrew from Yorktown as secretly as they had withdrawn from Manassas. 
General MeClellan had comsumed many weeks, including the whole month of April, 
in preparing to breach the fort at Yorktown. It is impossible to say how many 
weeks more he would have gone on digging and hauling, and it is a matter of record 
that he had just sent a request that the heavy siege guns in the fortifications for the 
defence of Washington should be taken out of their ^vorks and shipped to him, when, 
at length, the day after the withdrawal of the rebels, he " discovered " they had 
gone I Coming into possession of the deserted position, he immediately asked if he 
might inscribe " Yorktown " on his banners, and telegraphed a dispatch which he 
has forgotten to reproduce, to the effect that he would " push the enemy to the 
wall." I aeed hardly rem irk that this •' w.iU" was never found; and we were 
left to exclaim with Pyramus : 

"Tlioiiwall! 0, wall ! 0, sweet and lovely wall, 
Show me thy chink to blink through with mine eyne." 

We shall presently follow General MeClellan in his subsequent movements on the 
Peninsula ; but before dismissing the consideration of the siege of Yorktown, we 
must remark, in a word, that we find ourselves unable to accord to that siege the 
admiration which General MeClellan challenges for it. We are requested to admire 
the thirty or forty miles of corduroy road constructed by his army, the miles of 
trenches and rifle pits opened, and the huge batteries placed, none of which, by the 
way, was ever allowed to open its fire. But we could admire the corduroy road 
more, were it not, according to General McClellan's own statement, a mere piece of 
supererogation — the roads in that region being "passable at all seasons of the year." 
We could admire the colossal digging and delving more, could we shut out the 
ghastly vision of the thousands of lives lost by the epidemics of the region into 
which our army had been led and the useless servitude to which it had been con- 
demned, or push aside the spectacle of those brave fellows digging at once a double 
ditch — a grave as well as a trench. We could admire more the profiles of his bas- 
tions and his batteries, did they not irresistibly present themselves to our imagina- 
tion as huge monuments of the folly of a man who, seeking the Peninsula to exe- 
cute a strategically offensive campaign, sat down, at the first show of resistance, to 
a feeble tactical defensive. 

VIII. 

THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN. 

It now stands historically determined that at tlie time the Army of the Potomac 
landed upon t!ie Peninsula, the rebel cause had reached its lowest ebb. The splen- 
did victories won by the Union armies in the West — armies whose ardor even the 
MeClellan policy, while it ruled, had not been able to restrain, and which, when 
once freed from that incubus, sprang forth into glorious activity — had carried dis- 
comfiture and dernui'alization to the rebel ranks, terror and dismay to the whole 
population, and fearful forebodings to the souls of the guilty leaders. 

And while this was true of the rebel cause and the rebel armies generally, these 
influences were also powerfully felt by the rebel army in Virginia. It must 
be remembered that this was before the [passage even of the fii'st Conscription Act, 
and while the rebel army was suffering from the excessively defective military sya- 



19 

tem under wliich the "Provisional Army" was organized. Its Winter at Manas- 
sas had greatly reduced it by disease and expiration of the term of service of the 
one year troops, and there is the best evidence to show that it effected its with- 
drawal from Manassas and Centreville in a condition of very great demoralization. 
Under these circumstances, there is hardly the shadow of a doubt that, had the 
rebels been promptly followed up after their retreat behind the Rappahannock, our 
army would have entered Richmond on the heels of a routed and dissolving mob, 
and taken possession of tlie Capital which the rebel leaders then expected to 
abandon. 

In this state of facts, the historian finds himself brought face to face with the 
puzzling problem of determining how it happens that, in the words of Gen. Baknard, 
(see Report of Engineer Operations,) "the date of the iniation of the campaign of 
this magnificent Army of the Potomac was the date of the resuscitation of the rebel 
cause, which seemed to grow strong pari passu with the slow progress of its 
operations?" 

What the first favoring influence was, we need be at no loss to determine. The 
unexpected delay of the whole month of April before Yorktown — the military 
strength of which was so ludicrously inadequate to have arrested the march of our 
army, that it was long before the rebels would believe the evidence of their own 
eyes that McClellax had actually called a halt — gave the rebels ample time to 
look about them, to form their plans and to set on foot their execution. The first 
fruit of this was the Conscription Law, which, let it be observed, was passed by the 
Confederate Congress at Richmond on the 16th day of April, in the midst of 
McClellan's tragi-comedy of the spade before Yorktown ; and this was immediately 
followed by the re organization of the Confederate army. Moreover the bitter 
manner in which the defeats of the West brought home to the leaders the military 
maxim that in attempting to cover everything one covers nothing, had taught 
them the policy oi concentration, and they speedily began its application in Vir- 
ginia. 

The effect of these measures was, of course, not immediate; but Gen. McClellan 
delayed long enough at various points to permit their full development. Faulty in 
strategy though the transfer of the army to the Peninsula must be considered 
— faulty as involving a necessary division of force and an enormous waste of time, 
without eliminating or diminishing any of the difficulties of the direct advance, but, 
on tlie contrary exaggerating them all — nevertheless, considering the low ebb to 
which the rebel fortunes had sunk, and the weak and demoralized condition of the 
rebel army in Virginia, at the initiation of the campaign on the Peninsula, we are 
warranted by the facts in saying that a vigorous advance fron Fortress Monroe 
would have brought the Union army into position to fight a battle for the posses- 
sion of Richmond, with the chances of success decidedly on our side. This might 
again have been possible, a month later, after the battle of Williamsbui'g. It might 
still have been possible another month later on the heels of Fair Oaks, But it was 
reserved for Gen. McClkllan, by a display of timidity and indisposition to act 
amounting absolutely to disease, to weary and wear out the patience of Fortune 
till at length she ceased to present any more golden opportunities. What was pos- 
sible to us in April, was no longer possible in August, and the force which, as we 
notv knoio, had abandoned Yorktown without plans of future action, and which was 
driven out of Williamsburg, was able tiiree months afterwards — thanks to 
McClellan's considerate delays — to asfeume the offensive and throw his army pell- 
mell back in disastrous retreat on the James. 

But I anticipate. On the "discovery" of the withdrawal of the rebels on the 
morning of the 6th of May, Gen. Stoneman, with his cavalry Corps and four batte- 
ries of horse artillery, was sent in pursuit. He was followed by Hooker's Division 
of Heintzelman's Corps. Subsequently the divisions of Kearney, Couch, and Casey 
(of Sumner's Corps) were sent forward. Stoneman came up with the enemy's rear- 
guard at Williamsburg, where a defensive line had been thrown up, which, how- 
ever, it is evident, Johnston was not minded to hold, since his whole army had 
passed ieyonii Williamsburg. It was therefore, simply for the purpose of securing 
the safe vl'ithdrawal of the trains that the rebel rear turned sharply on Stoneman at 
Williamsburg; and, it being found that Union infantry supports were coming up, 
Longstreet's division was actually ordered back to that point. It was between his 
command and the divisions of Sumner's and Heintzelman's corps that, on the fol- 
lowing day, the crude, ill-planned, unnecessary, but, for us, bloody encounter, which 
figures in history as the battle of Williamsburg, took place. 

Gen. McClei.lan, in his Report, skims this affair in a few vague touches — a fact 
that might be accounted for from the circumstances that, not having been person- 



20 

ally present at this his first battle, he could know nothing of it from his own know- 
ledge, were it not for the other circumstance, that tliere are on record dispatches 
revealing, on the part of Gen. McClellan, motives and moods of mind totally at 
variance with the representations of liis Report. I do not affirm that the fact of 
their being extremely damaging to liis military pretensions could have anothing to 
do with tlieir omission. I simply submit to the consideration of candid minds to 
determine what is the real motive of a historical deficit otherwise so unaccount- 
able. 

Gen. McClellan does not mention, when speaking of the column he "immediate 
ly" sent in pursuit of the enemy, that, had he been left to the motions of his own 
hesitating and cautious spirit, no column ever would had been sent in pursuit at all. 
It was only after the repeated and united solicitations of several of the commanders 
had at length succeeded in elevating his mettle up to the point of action, that the 
consented to a force being sent in pursuit, the battle of Williamsburg. 

When, too, it was sent, it was under circumstances that made the horrible confusion 
and disorder that reigned at Williamsburg perfectly inevitable. 

While Gen. MoClellan had remained behind at Yorktown, for the purpose, as 
he says, of "completing the preparations forthe departure of Gen. Franklin's and 
other troops to West Point by water" — a task which, under the circumstances, 
that is, considering that Gen. Franlin's Division had remained on shipboard 
ever since it arrived, for the very good reason that, spite of Gen. McClellan's 
calls for reinforcements, he could not find room on the Peninsula to -place what 
he had, and that Franklin's movement was a mere diversion and not the main 
business on hand, might surely have been entrusted to the General who was to 
command it. About noon of Monday the Prince de Joinville and Gen. Sprague 
went down to Yorktown, to induce Gen. McClellan to come up and take charge of 
operations which were going so badly for us. When told the condition of affairs in 
front. Gen. McClellan remarked that he had supposed "those in front could at- 
tend to that little matter." After some time, however, he started from Yorktown, 
reached the vicinity of Williamsburg, just at the close of the battle, and for the 
first time came face to face with the actnal aspect of tha problem there presented. 

Now, if one looks into Gen. McClellan's so called "Report," with a view to dis-. 
cover what purpose he then and there formed in face of the state of facts at Wil- 
liamsburg, he will look in vain. But it happens that there are dispatches in exis- 
tence which do photograph Gen. McClellan's mind at this period, and as it is my 
aim to pierce to the historical truth ULderl \ iug the veneer which he has spread over 
these transactions, I will tax the patience of the reader so far as to follow with some 
minuteness the dissection of one of Gen. McClellan's iinpuhlished telegrams. 

Whan, toward nightfall. Gen. McClellan arrived before Williamsburg, the enemy 
still held his position there. The troops in the front had been fighting within 
hearing of McClellan during the entire day, but not within his personal supervision, 
and he was, for the most part, ignorant of the true state of affairs. He thought 
that the enemy had a securely intrenched position at Williamsburg, and had thus 
opposed his further advance at that time a7id he determined to lose time before 
Williamsburg, just as he had done at Yorktown, This is sufficiently apparent from 
the following telegram of May 5, which, notwithstanding its great historical impor- 
tance, Gen. McClellan has 7iot seen fit to re-produce: 

Bivouac in Fbont of Williamsburgh, I 
May 5—10 P. M. j 
After arranging for movement np York river, I was urgenily sent for here. I flnJ Joe Johnston 
in*front of me in strong force— ]>rohaMi/ greater, a good deal, than my otmi, and vei-y strongly 
intrenched. Hancock has taken two redoubts, and repulsed Karly's brigade by a real chargeof the 
bayonet, taking 1 colonel and 150 prisoners, killing at least two colonels and as many lieutenant- 
colonels, an<l many privates. His conduct was brilliant in the extreme I do not know our exact 
loss, but fear Hooker has lost considerably on our leit. J learn from prisoners tJiat they intend 
disputing enrry steji to Richmond. I nhall run the ritik of at leant holding them in check here, 
while I resume the original })lan. My entire force is, undoubtedly, considerably inferior to that 
of the rebels, who stillflght well ; but I will do all lean with theforce at my difspoxal. 

Q. B. McCLELLAN. 
Major General Communding. 
Hon. Edwin M. STiLNxoN, Secretary of War. 

This telegram certainly contains some very extraordinary features, remai'kably 
illustrative of the peculiar genius of General McClellan. 

He had been "urgently sent for" as if heavj- firing in his front during the day 
had not been urgently calling him forward from the moment he heard it, without 
waiting for a summons by special messengers. 

Hancock had made a "real charge with the bayonet," as if to chaige the enemy 
with the bayonet was something surprising to the last degree, and not to be looked 
for from any portion of his army. 



21 



He " fears that Hooker has lost considerably," because he knew, but knew very 
little more, tliat Hooker had been under heavy fire during several hours of the day, 
while he was superintending the movenaent of Franklin's division (of McDowell's 
corps) up York river. , • r 

Having found his advance checked at Williamsburg, he very gravely iniorms the 
Secretary of War that he " will ru7i the risk of at least holding thern in check," while 
what? "Why, being checked himself, he will run the risk of holding the enemy in 
check " while he resumes his original plan'" — an indefinite expression, which may 
refer to either of two plans, that'of turning Gloucester, or that of employing regu- 
lar siege operations, such as he had employed before Yorktowu.* 

His entire force he represents as " undoubtedly considerably inferior to that of 
the rebels— a second allusion in the same telegram to an opinion which all the cir- 
cumstances, even at the time, showed to be unfounded, the enemy having just then 
preci|)itately fled from Yorktown. and having been driven immediately afterward 
by " a real charge with the bayonet" — certainly no signs of superiority on their 
part. 

He says that the enemy "still fight well, although the fighting at WiUiamsburgh, 
that very day, was the first that his army had seriously encountered since General 
McClellan had been in command of it. 

And, finally, he concludes the telegram by an evident allusion to the McDowell 
subject of complaint, assuring the Secretary of War that he " will do all he can with 
the force at his disposal"— language indicating very great, if not extreme, despond- 
ency, fearfully foreboding the disasters of a campaign just commenced. 

This telegram was written at 10 o'clock on the evening of the 5th of May, in 
which we see, as just intimated, that General McClellan speaks of holding the enemy 
in check at WiUiamsburgh ; while, in fact, the enemy, as he then thought, had not 
only checked /t/s advance, but was in position behind "strong intrenchments," as he 
calls them, to hold him in check ; and he deliberately reports his purpose of resum- 
ing his original plan, the execution of which would have required time, instead of 
breaking through the enemy's lines. 

But what was the true state of the case ? This may be seen by the telegram 
of the next morning, dated at WiUiamsburgh, and addressed to the Secretary of 
War. 

Headquarters Army of Potomac, > 
WiLLiAMSBUKG, Va , May 6. j 

I have the pleasure to announce the occupation of this place as the result of the hard-fought ac- 
tion of yesterday The effect of Hancock's brilliant engagement yesterday afternoon was to turn the 
left of their line of works He was strongly reinforced, and the enemy abandoned the entire posi- 
tion during -.he night, leaving all his sick and wounded in our hands The victory is complete. 
* * * Am I autAorizeil to follow the example of other generals, and direct the names 

of battles to be placed on the colors of regiments ? We have other battles to fight before reaching 

Bichmond. /-, t, at nr-cTT axt 

G-, B. McCLELLAN, 

Major General Commanding. 

At ten o'clock during the night of the 5th of May, General McClellan^ formally re- 
ports that he will hold the enemy in check, when, in fact, his real opinion was that 
the enemy held him in check ; and he quite distinctly declares his purpose of resort- 
ing to measures requiring time to obtain possession of WiUiamsburgh, when at the 
moment of writing that dispatch General Hancock, by acting in the spirit of the 
President's recommendation to break the enemy's lines, but without specific instruc- 
tions from General McClellan, had turned their position, and had actually com- 
passed what General McClellan despaired of accomplishing, except by slow opera- 
lions. On the morning of the 6th of May General McClellan, passing suddenly from 
a state of extreme despondency, reports exultingly tliat the victory of the 5th of 
May " is complete." 

In the slate of despondency he exaggerates the strength of the enemy, plainly an 
excuse for his delay before Yorktown, and sets it dawn as " considerably greater 
than his own ;" but says he will do all he can with the force at his disposal— when 
the facts show that the enemy abandoned Yorktown without waiting for an attack, 
and were driven out of WiUiamsburgh by a brilliant assault made by troops acting 
under an inspiration, which General McClellan's extreme " caution" could not alto- 
gether restrain. 

It is by precisely such manipulation as this— that is, by constantly putting as 

*And here it may be observed, that while he was employed before Yorktown, the enemy con- 
structed his line of defence six or eight miles in the rear, where General McClellan proposed to 
consume more time, giving the enemy leisure for the construction of another line stUl further in the 
rear, as if he intended to aid the enemy in disputing " every step to Richmond ;" the purposes ot 
the enemy, according to informalion received Irom " prisoners.'' 



22 

origiaal motives what were really aflcrthnar/Ids, and by an adroit use of the .sup- 
prcssio vcri — that General McOlellan endeavors to give a false coloring to actions 
and events. But unfortunately for the success of this operation, there are too many 
"damned spots" that will not "out" for all his washing. 

Of these there is now another that must be set, forth. 

When General McGlellan, after the battle of Williamsburgli took up his march by 
the line of the York river, and thence along the railroad to the Chickahominy, in- 
stead of striking across obliquely to the James, and using that river as his line of 
supplies — a coui-se rendered possible by the destruction of the Merrhnac — we are, 
according to his Report, to believe that it was with extreme reluctance that he 
adopted this plan, to which he attempts to make it appear that he was reduced by 
the intermeddling of the authorities at Washington. 

In response to General McClellan's constant calls for reinforcements it was deter- 
mined that McDowell's corps, at Frederieksburgh, should move overland to make a 
junction either north or south of the I'amunkey, with the right of the Army of the 
Potomac, and co operate in the reduction of Richmond. 

Informed of this determination by a dispatch from the Secretary of War, under 
date of May 18, General McGlellan goes off in a fit of well simulated rage, and de- 
clares that this determination, and the necessity it imposed of taking the line of the 
York river, destroj-ed all his plans. " This order," he says, " rendered it impossible 
for me to use the James river as a line of operations, eiX\A forced me to establish our 
depots on the I'amunkey and to approach Richmond from the north. * * 

* The land movement obliged me to expose my right in order to secure the junc- 
tion ; and as the order for General McDowell's march was soon countermanded, I 
incurred great risk, of which the enemy finally took advantage mid frustrated the 
plan of campaign." 

Now, is General McGlellan so short of memory, or is he purposely guilty of so 
shameless an inconsistency, that he dares to make such an assertion as this, ^vhen 
he is himself on record, under solemn oath, in a sense directly the reverse ? 

In his testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, General Mc- 
Glellan in reply to the specific questions — " Could not the advance on Richmond 
from Williamsburgli have been made with better prospect of success by the James 
river titan by the route pursued, and what were the reasons for taking the route adop- 
ted ?" — stated as follows : 

"I do not think that the navy at that tiino was in a condition to nialce the line of tlie James 
river perfectly secure for our supplies. The line of the Pamunkey offered greater advantages in 
that reaped. The place ioa.9 in a better position to effect a junction with any troops that might 
moiie from Washington on the Frederieksburgh line . I remember that the ilea of moving on 
Vie James river was seriousli/ discussed at that time. But the conlusion was arrived at that, 
under the circuiristanoes then existing, the route actually followed icas the best.'''' 

I leave to others the task of harmonizing these " points of mighty opposites," 
and of determining which is original motive and which afterthought. If they can- 
not be harmonized, 1 leave the reader to stamp with its fitting characterization 
this assertion of General McClellan's. 

But the truth of history requires me to go farther, and to point out tliat it was not 
at Williamsburgh but at Roper's church, where the army was, ten days preniously, 
that it was necessary to decide whether he would there cross the Ciiickahominy 
(undefended) and approach the James liver, (then open to us by the destruction of 
the Merrimae,) or continue on the Williamsburgh road toward Richmond. Tiie de 
cision was made then and there, and the decision was to move by the York and 
Pamunkey. So that so far from its being true, as claimed by General McClellan — 
that the dispatch of the Secretary of War " ordering" him to connect by land with 
McDowell, obliged him to renounce a route b}^ which, as he would now lead us to 
believe, he could have taken Richmond, the truth is that the choice of route was 
voluntarily made by Genei'al McClellan ten days before this order he quotes was given; 
and yet he lias in his report the astounding assurance to complain of the order in 
question as subjecting him to " great risks," of which the enemy finally " took ad- 
vantage" and " frustrated '"the plan of campaign !" 

What the enemy took advantage of — and what he would have been a fool had he 
7iot taken advantage of — was Gen. McClellan's own ill judged scheme of operations, 
by which he gave the Rebels an interior position between himself and the force 
covering Washington. Just as Gen. McDowell was about to start from Fredericks- 
burg, with a reinforcement of forty thousand men, came the news of Jackson's raid 
up the Shenandoah A^alley, and Gen. McDowell was ordered by the President to 
send first one division, then another, and then his whole force, to follow Jackson — 
a request which is evident from Gen. McDowell's dispatches, he complied with with 



23 

extreme reluctance, as it, for the time being, diverted him from his proposed march 
to join McOlellan, which lie had extremely at heart. 

'i'hus early was the order detaining McDowell's corps to cover "Washington fully 
justified! This, as well as all the circumstances of the case, are fully set forth in a 
dispatch from the President, under date of May 25, in which, after giving the details 
of Jackson's movement and the dispositions that had been made in consequence, he 
concludes as follows: 

"//■ McBoweXV R force ica/i noiv heyojid our reach, we should he utterly heirless. Aj^prehension 
of something like this, and no unwillingtiess to sustain you, lias always been my reason 
for withholding McDowell's force from you. Please understand this, and do the best you can 
with the force you have." 

I submit if this language does not display, on the part of the President, a temper 
worthy the name of sublime, especially when we consider it was addressed to 
the man who, of all others, had most tried his patience — the man whose conduct, on 
numberless occasions, had deserved his severest displeasure — the man to whom the 
President had conceded unlimited means for preparing one of the most powerful 
armies ever raised in any country — the man who, after all, evaded by an attempted 
artifice, the orders of his constitutional chief, thereby exposing the capital of the 
nation to be sacked bj' the enemy, and exposing also his really grand army to defeat 
and danger of imminent destruction? 

The countermanding of the order given to McDowell, gave McClellan what was 
far more valuable to him than the actual reinforcements which that General would 
have brought — to wit, an excuse, or the semblance of an excuse for further delays. 
For a long time he and his friends were able to saddle on that detention all the 
blame of his failures; but this shallow trick has ceased to be possible since the 
publication of the documents in the case; and I may add that it has ceased to be 
possible since the publication of Gen. McClellan's own report. 

Gen. McClellan states that "the information that McDowell's corps would march 
from Fredrieksburgh on the following Monday, (the 26th,) and that he would be 
under my command, ivas cheerhig news, and I now fell that wc would on his arrival 
he siifficienthj strong to overpower the large army confronting us." This is simulated 
joy and had no being in the bosom of Gen. McClellan at the time. The fact is Gen. 
McClellan did not wish Gen. McDowell to join him by an overland march; he 
wished tim to come by water on ftis rear, and stated at the time that lie would 
rather not have him at oil than have him come overlaiid ! This fact is abundantly 
proven by numerous dispatches, published and unpublished. Thus, under date of 
May 21, he writes: " I fear there is little hope McDowell can join me overland in 
time for the coming battle." (One would suppose from this that be was going to 
fight a battle in ten minutes.) But if he did not think McDowell would be able to 
join him "in time" bv an overland march of fifty miles, (an easy three or four 
days' march,) how co.. d he expect him to join him in time by the water route, 
when, according to his experience, the transit could not have been accomplished 
short of a fortnight? This is iterated and reiterated day after day, and finally, in 
a dispatch, under date of June 14, he says, with still greater emphasis: 

" It ouglit to be distinctly understood that McDowell and his troops are completely under my 
control, I received a telegraph from him requesting that McCall's Division might be placed so 
as to join him immediately on his arrival. That request does not breathe the proper spirit. — 
Whatever troops come to me must be so disposed of as to do the most good . I ds not feel feel that, 
in such circumstances as those in which 1 am now placed. Gen. McDowell should wish the 
general interest to be sacrificed for the purpose of incre'asing his command. If I cannot fully 
control all his troops, I want none of them, but would prefer to fight the battle zcith what I 
have, and let others be responsible for the results." 

Now, speaking of what does and what does not " breathe the proper spirit," I 
would like to ask whether this astounding declaration of Gen. McClellan "breathes" 
exactly the " pi'oper spirit?" According to his own repeated declarations, he was 
in a position in which reinforcements were absolutelj' essential, atul yet he prefers 
not to have them at all, unle.<is he can have them by a route, coming by which they 
would have required thrice the length of time, and by which they would also have been 
put out of the possibilily of offering a?iy protection to the threatened Capital of the 
nation. The only advantage his plan presented is that it would have enabled him 
to break up McDowell's divisions as they arrived, and assign them to the commands 
of his own favorites, and rid him of the man whom he had come to regard with the 
green eye of jealousy. I submit to the candid reader to determine whether Gen. 
McClellan is in a situation to throw himself back on his injured innocence, and 
claim for himself and his conduct such pure and elevated and unselfish and patriotic 
motives, or whether all these claims are not the most hollow and unmitigated 
pretence. 



24 

Of events on the Chickahominy, so damning to McClellan, so humiliating to 
the wliole country, there is neither the space nor the patience here to speak.* — 
Two decisive battles were fought on the Ciiickahominy — Fair Oaks and Gaines' 
Mill. They were not battles of McClellan's seeking — they were brought on by the 
rebels, and we are thus presented witli the odd spectacle of a General seeking a 
special theatre of war for the purpose of making not only an offensive, but a " rapid " 
and "brilliant" movement, compelled each time he met the enemy to fight on the 
defensive. We have the further spectacle of a man who was constantly clamoring 
for reinforcements, _^(7A<Mi/7 his two chief battles, the first with one-half, the second 
with less than one third his force ! 

To the last we find him persisting in the demand for more troops — to the last 
■we find him the man who was ready to 



" Drink up Esile, eat a crocodile," 



doing nothing with what he had. " If at this instant," says he, the day after the 
battle of Gaines' Mill, " I could dispose of ten thousand fresh men, I could gain the 
victory to-morrow " — a statement to which we might reply that, had he not allowed. 
Porter's corps to be slaughtered the daj' before, he would have had the ten thousand 
he there lost. But it is very remarkable that, with an enemy •' two hundred 
thousand" strong, and behind "strong entrenchments," he should have deemed 
himself capable of "gaining the victory" with a feeble reinforcement of ten thousand 
men, which would have been no more than he had during all the time he did not 
" gain a victory." In fact, his victories on pappr and in hypothesis, are part of the 
wonderful phenomena of Gen. McClellan's charactei'. 

Having lost his base, and the enemy being planted across his communications, it 
only remained for Gen. McClellan to beat a retreat to the James River. This act 
he dignified at the time by the cuphenism of " change of base " — a phrase which 
has since then acquired a ludicrous meaning it will long to lose. 

The retreat to the James, considering the bulk of the enemy was on the left bank 
of the Chickahominy and a long march off, was not difficult. But, notwithstanding 
this fact, and that the troops were put in the most obvious positions, and that in 
no case was Gen. McClellan present at any of the engagements of the " seven days' 
fight," this movement has been claimed as a masterpiece of strategj' — compara- 
ble, say his admirers, only to Moreau's retreat through the Black Forest. And I 
dare say that the credit in the one case is about as just as in the other; for Napoleon 
proclaims that Moreau's retreat was "the greatest blunder he ever committed." — 
" As the Directoi'y," adds he, " could not give Moreau credit for a victory, theii did 
for a retreat, which they caused to be extolled in the highest terms ; but, instead of 
credit, Moreau merited the greatest censure and disgrace for it." I leave the 
parallel to tlie reader's own apprehension. 

In all the battles during this retrograde movement, we have the same utter want 
of head — Gen. McClellan in each case being absent getting a fresh position to fall 
back upon. This is the first time that we have known that it is i\\& first and highest 
duty of a Commanding General to reconnoitre positions for a retreat. " The Corps 
Commanders," says Gen. Heintzleman, in his testimony before the Committee on the 
Conduct of the War, "fought their troops according to their own ideas. We helped 
each other. If anybody asked for reinforcements, I sent them? if I wanted rein- 
forcements, I sent to others. He [McClellan] was the most extraordinary man I 
ever saw. I do not see how any man could leave so much to others, and be so confident 
that everything wotdd go just right." Even at the last of the series of battles, when 
a defeat would have thrown his army into the James River, at Malvern, we find 
him, with the exception of a brief period previous to and at the end of the fight, 
away " on board a gunboat," and this, notwithstanding the admitted fact that the 
innate valor of our troops gave the enemy so decided a repulse that, if vigorously 
followed up, they might even then have been followed up into Richmond. 

So ends the story of the strange, eventful campaign on the Peninsula — a campaign 
which, though ill-planned, was worse executed, and in which the utter incapacity 
of the Commanding General to take advantage of even such opportunities as fortune 
threw in his way, was most signally demonstrated. Gen. McClellan did not bring 
back with him such an army as he had taken away. He brought back an army 
demoralized, worn down by useless toil, reduced by sickness, almost unmatched in 
the annals of war. He found the rebel cause at the lowest ebb, and the rebel army 

* A full criticism of the whole of McClellan's military conduct on the peninsula will be found 
in the series of articles in the N. Y. Times, reviewing McClellan's Keport, by the present writer. 



25 

demoralized and dispirited. He left one in the flood-tide of success, the morale of 
the other restored by the prestige of great victories. 

IX. 

HOW POPE GOT OUT OF HIS "SCRAPE." 

If the army had sustained itself nobly throughout the sad campaign on the Pea- 
insula, it cannot be denied that so much fruitless toil and so much disaster had 
impaired its morale, while the losses in battle and the epidemics of the region had 
greatly thinned its ranks. It therefore became a serious question when the army 
arrived at Harrison's Landing whether it should be allowed to remain or be brought 
away.* At first there seems to have been no other intention than to reinforce McClel- 
lan and let him try it once again. He had promised if furnished with twenty thou- 
sand men to assume the offensive and attempt a fresh advance towards Richmond. 
Accordingly Shield's division was sent him and other troops were about to be forward- 
ed wiien he put up his request to 50,000 men, and finally demanded reicforcements 
"rather much over than under 100,000 strong." It was utterly impossible to furnish 
this number, and this reason, joined to the fact that a majority of the highest ofiieers 
of the army of the Potomac counseled a withdrawal, and that a movement to effect 
a junction with the forces in front of Washington, now under General Pope, was 
essential to cover the Capital against the attack which the rebels were absolutely 
certain to make, and for which they were at this verj' time actually preparing, de- 
termined the Administration to recall the army from the Peninsula. 

The order for the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula was given by Gen- 
eral Halleek, on the 3d of August. The point to which it was ordered was Aquia 
Creek, for the purpose of making a junction with the forces under Pope, on the 
Rappahannock. It is hardly necessary to say that after this course was determined 
upon the utmost possible promptitude in execution of the design was absolutely 
necessary, for there could be ko doubt that the purpose of the rebels looking to- 
ward a movement on Washington would receive the most powerful stimulus by the 
knowledge of the withdrawal of the army from the Peninsula. 

But instead of this, we find General McClellan sitting down to expostulation, and 
after he had exhausted this, we see him throwing every practical obstacle in the 
way of getting the army back. He urges " the terribly depressing effect on the North 
and the strong probability that it would induce foreign powers to recognize our ad- 
versaries," whereas the fact is, there was hardly an intelligent man in the North 
who was not looking with the most intense anxiety to the retnoval of the army to 
a position where it could be interposed between the enemy and the menaced Capi- 
tal of the nation. He promises, however, if his counsel does not prevail, to "obey 
the order with a sad heart." 

This " sadness " of his heart seems to have so enfeebled his hand, that though he 
was ordered to commence the removal of the army on the 3d of August, day after 
day passed before anything was done toward it. " It is believed," writes General 
Halleek to him under date of the 5th, "that it [the removal] can be done now 
without serious danger. This mat/ dot be to should there be any delay." 

Finally, on the 10th, he received dispatches which should have stirred the most 
sluggish nature to activity : " They are fighting General Pope to-day — there must be 
no further delay in your movements ; that tohich has already occurred was nnexpected 
and must be satisfactorily explained." This only gives McClellan an opportunity to 
show the enormous "inherent difficulties of the movement" — difficulties which were 
pointed out to him before he started to take the army to the Peninsula, but which he 
then made light of — and he ends by adding : "It is not possible for any one to place 
this army where you wish it in less than a month ; if Washington is in danger now 
this army can scarcely arrive iii time to save it !" What a cheering person General 
McClellan is I 

Without following these transactions througii all their maddening details, suflllce 
it ta say that it was the 20th of the month — seventeen days after the order for with- 
drawal was given — before the army was ready to embark at Yorktown, Fortress 

* There is connected -with this portion of McClellan's cjtreer one curious piece of history that 
merits a passing notice here. Readers of the Report will not have failed to have noted an extra- 
ordinary letter addressed by General McClellan to the I'resideiit, fn.m Harrison's Bar, under date 
of July 7, giving his "views "on the political situation. This document opens with this state- 
ment that the '^rebellion ha* assumed the character of a war " — a discovery which, perhaps, 
explains the peace principles on which General McUlelluu had been operating, but which it is 
a misfortune he did not make at an earlier date. It then proceeds to indicate a politico-military 
programme of the moral suasion stamp, stating that " a deelaration of radical views, especially 



Monroe and Newport's News. And with this I leave it, to find it turning up 
again at Alexandria, where I shall have to review a series of events, the most ex- 
traordinary, perhaps, in General McClellan's extraordinary career. 

The v/hole rebel army was now rapidlj' marching northward to overwhelm Pope 
and precipitate itself on "Washington. If Gen. McClellan's own estimate of the rebel 
force, at 200 000, was correct, Pope had upon him a force six times his strength, 
and, as it was, he certainly had upon him a force three or fowr times liis strength. 
His instructions were to " stand fast" on tlie Rappahannock — to "fight like the 
devil and contest every inch of ground." In this task, he was cheered by the 
announcement that from Alexandria he would speedily receive heavy rein- 
forcements, among whicli was the corps of Franklin, which he designed to move to 
Gainesville, a position which covered Manassas Junction, and watched the gaps in 
the Piedmont Ridge. 

With the view of giving effect to this purpose, Gen. Halleck, on the morning of 
the 27th of August, telegraphed to McClellan, who had arrived in Alexandria the 
day before, and through whom all reinforcements to Pope must pass, that "Frank- 
lin's corps should march in the direction of Manassas as soon as possible." Had 
this order been obeyed, Jackson's forces, defeated and driven by Pope on the 27th, 
would have been met near Oentreville the next afternoon and crushed. 

Now I ask of the reader to bring all the attention and patience he can command, 
while I show with what fertility of device, and what prodigality of ingenuity. 
Gen. McClellan contrived so to arrange things that Pope should not get a man of 
these reinforcements; but should be left with his feeble force of less than forty 
thousand men to a death-grapple witli the enemy that had lately defeated McClel- 
lan's once splendid army of one hundred and fifty thousand men : in other words, 
should be left to^I use Gen. McClellan's owa choice phraselogy — ^' fffi out of his 
scrape." And I shall show that so completely successful was he that not a single 
man ever reached Pope after McClellan arrived at Alexandria. 

In this expose I shall take up events in their chronological order, beginning with 
the date of the first dispatch to McClellan with reference to the forwarding of re- 
inforcements. I shall show what was the state of facts in front, what were the ne- 
cessities of the occasion, what orders Gen. McClellan received, and how he carried 
them out. Let me add that I shall not draw from the testimony of Gen. Pope, nor 
from the overwhelming array of facts developed by the Committee on the Conduct 
of the War. I shall eonfiine myself to the simple setting forth of the text of the 
series of telegrams that passed botween headquarters and Gen. McClellan, though 
I shall be forced to draw from many dispatches which Gen. McClellan, for reasons 
best known to himself, has not seen fit to reproduce in his so-called " Report." 

The 21th of August.— At 10 A. M., Gen. Halleck telegraphs McClellan: 

•' Franklins Corps should march in that direction [Manassas] as soon as possible." 

At 10 20 Geo. McClellan replies: 

" I have sent orders to Franklin to prepare to march, and to repair here [Alexandria] in 
person, to inform me as to his means of tratispo-rtation.^' 

At noon Gen, Halleck reiterates, with emphasis, his order to Fraaklin to 
march. 

" Fraoklin's corps should move o«t by forced marches, carrying three or four days provision.'' 
&c. 

To this Gen. McClellan replies at 1 15 P. M. : 

"Franklin's artillery have no horses, except for four guns;" and adds; ^' Ido not see tluit w« 
hanoe force ev ovgh in /uind to for^tn a connection icith Pope, whose e<r<ict jyosition we do not 
know." 

Is it not very strange thatin order that Franklin should mareh with his corps. Gem. 
McClellan should begin by calling him away /row it? If Franklin's artillery lacked 
horses, whj- did he not take horses which were in abundance in Alexandria? That 
this was so, I shall presently establish conclusively ; and I shall also show that 
neither McClellan, nor Franklin, ever applied for transportation to t}i£ Quartermas- 
ter's Deparf^nent, which tins ready instantlg to famish it. 

upon Slavery, mill rapidly disintegrate onr present armies.'' Now, whnt is notable in this 
paper is, that it was toriten in Washingt4)u hifore he left for his Peninsular eawpaign, and ioa« 
intended to be issued in Richmond He fancied he would there be in a position to dictate terms 
and indicate the public policy. Not finding his expected opportunity to lire off the shot he hail 
prepared, he, took llie best occasion he could find ; and so, putting on a " tag" at the beginnir»g 
and the end, he brought it out at Harrison's L.inding. Its ineffable impudence, the haggard 
and untimely looli it wears, and the inherent absurdity of the proposition to deal leniently 
with those at whose hands ho had just suffered disastrous defeat, are sufficiently aecounted for by 
the circumstances detailed. 



27 

The 28th of August— On the morning of the 28th, Halleck teleffraphs directly to 
Franklin : o i j 

' ' On parting with Gen. McClellan. about 2 o'cloclv tliis morning, it was understood tliat you 
were to move with your corps to-day toward Manassas Junction, to drive the enemy from the 
railroad I have just learned that the general has not returned to Alexandria. If you have not 
received his order, act on this." •' 

To this, at 1 P. M., McClellan, not Franklin, replies: 

"Tourdisi>atch to Frankiin received. I have been doing all possible to hurry artillery and 
cavalry. The moment that Franklin can be started with a reasonable amount of artillery h« shall 

v°■^ *<•*., * * X * , ^'*^'i-''^ see Barnard, and be sure the works toward the Chain 

Bridge are perfectly secure. I look upon those works, Ethan Allen and Marcy, as of the flrat 
importance" •" 

At 3 30 P. M., Halleck impatiently telegraphs McClellan: 

" mt a 7noment must he lost in pursuing as large a focce as possible toward Manasses, so as 
to communicate with Pope before the enemy is reinforced." 

To this McClellan repliel at 4 40 P. M.: 

"Oeji Frariklin is with me here. I will know In a few minutes the condition of artillery and 
cavalry. We are not yet in a condition to move— may be by to-morrow moi'ning." 

At 8 40 P. M., Halleck still luore imperatively telegraphs: 

"There must be no further delay in moving Franklin's corps toward Manassas ; thev must ao to- 
morrow morning, ready or not ready. If we delay too long to get ready, there will be no ne- 
cessity to go at all for Pope will either be defeated or victorious without orir aid. If there is a 
^v^'f" wagons, the men must carry provisions with them till the wagons can come to their 

To which Gen. McClellan replies at 1 P. M. : 

'• Your dispatch received. Franklin's corps has been ordered to march at 6 o'clock to-morrow 
morning. Sumner has about 14,000 infantry, without cavalry or artillery, here." 

These dispatches give the history of the 28th of August. Not one of these is 
published bu Gen. McClellan in his Report. They show the reiterated orders Gen. 
McClellan received to send reinforcements to Pope, and the imminence of the crisis 
that was upon that General. They show on the part of McClellan the shallow sub- 
terfuges he employed to avoid obeying these orders. In this whole series of excus- 
es, there is but one that presents even the show of sebstantiallity — namely the sup- 
posed lack of transportation ; but the utter baselessness of this pretence is made 
manifest by a dispatch of Gen. Halleck a day or two afterward. In which he says: 
"I learned last night (29th) that the Quartermasters Department would have given 
him (Franklin) plenty of transportation if he had applied for it any time since his 
arrival at Alexandria." 

. ^'/'s 29<A of August. — At length, two whole days after the imperative order was 
given to Gen. McClellan to have Franklin "move out by forced marches," he is able 
to say, "Franklin's corps is in motion." To be sure, Gen. McClellan confesses that 
his repeated promises throughout the the two previous days to send Franklin for- 
ward were all sham, for he says; "I should not have moved him but for your press- 
ing orders of last night." Still he is at length under way, and there is yet a possi- 
bility that he will reach Pope in time. Vain hope! He halts Franklin at Anan- 
dale and coolly telegraphs to Halleck: 

" Do you wish the moveynent of Franklin's corps to continue ? He is without reserve ammuni- 
tion and without transportation." 

Gen. Halleck must be a v€<ry mild mannered man, for he simply replies : 

" I want Frank'in'' s corps to more far enough to find out something about thp eneyny. Perhaps 
he may get such information at Anandale as to prevent his going further; otherwise, he will 
push on toward b'airlax. Try to get something from direction of Manassas, either by telegrams 
or through Franklin's scouts. Our people must move more actively, and find out where the ene- 
myis. lam tired of guesses." 

Gen. McClellan had now exhausted all the resources of a diabolical ingenuity in 
order to keep Pope from receiving reinforcements. He had by this means gained 
two days and a half; that is, from 10 A. M. of the 27th until 3 P. M. of the 29th. 
He knew that Pope had by this time the whole rebel army upon him. He kneiv 
that a great battle was that very morning and afternoon going on, for the loar of 
the artillery came to his ears at Alexandria, where he held thirty thousand loyal 
Americans in the leash, while their brothers in arms were being overwhehned. It- 
was a crisis with McClellan, and he must either let the troops go forward to Pope 
or devise a new system of tactics. He could no longer pretend that he did nut, 
know where Pope was — he could no longer pretend that he did not know how far 
Gen. Halleck wished Franklin to advance. He was brought to the wall by Gen. 
Halleck's emphatic order. " Our people mmtfnd out where the enemy is !" 

Gen. McClellan was equal to the emergency. He drops the correspondence with 
Halleck, aud cooliy indites to the President of the United States the following dia- 



28 

patch, the most extraordinary ever penned by any man wearing a soldier's uniform. 
I pause for a moment to ask the reader to take in a full realizing sense of the 
import of the following amazing woi'ds: 

" The last news I received from the direction of Manassas was from stragglers, to the effect 
that the enemy were evacuating Oenlerville and retiring towards Thoroughfare Oap. This is by 
no means reliable. I am clear that one of two courses should be adopted. Firnt — To concen- 
trate all our available forces to open communication with Pope. Seoond—To leave Pope to get 
out of hin scrape, and at once to use all means to make the Capital perfectly safe. No middle 
course will now answer. Tell me what you wish me to do and I will do all in my power to ac- 
Comolish it. I wish to know what my orders and authority are. I ask for nothing', but will obey 
whatever orders you give. I only ask a prompt decision, that I may at once give the necessary 
Orders. It will not do to delay longer." 

Expressive silence is the only possible comment on this astounding proposition, 
for the profound horror and contempt such words inspire take away all power of 
cool dissection. It is said that when Mr. Lincoln read this dispatch he fell Ijaek in 
his chair in a half fainting fit,and even at this distance of time it is hardly possible 
to read it without a sinking of t!ie heart. 

General M(tClellan in the above proposition suggests two courses. I need not 
say that tliey are substantially one and the same. He knew that Leesjunclion with 
Jackson was now certain — Fitz John Porter had attended to that. In either case, 
therefore, Pope was perfectly certain to be left to '^ ffcl out of his scrape." 

But what was the " scrape " out of which Pope was to get? Into what horrible 
indiscretion — so unwarranted that to leave him to '-get out" of it was only just 
punishment on him — had he rushed ? Will it be believed that he got into "the scrape" 
at the urgent, instance of General MeClellan, who begged Pope to make a diversion 
in his favor? Will it be believed that, with the loyal alacrity of a true soldier, he 
had, in obedience to this request, thrown himself down on the Rapidan to compel 
the enemy to loose his hold on the Army of the Potomac — that he received the 
whole weight of the rebel force precipitated upon him — that with masterly general- 
ship he kept back that force for seventeen days, fighting in that time several large 
battles, in which, repeated!}' successful, he gave the rebels their first taste of true 
punishment — that by this means he succeeded in gaining time sufficient for General 
MeClellan to bring back his army to the defence of the Capital? Yet such are the 
facts which history records. Now we understand. This was the " scrape '' Pope 
■was to get out of! 

'JTie 3U'/t of August. — I have e.^haustel the main action in this strange di-ama, 
but there I'emains an episode that sliouldtake its place in tliis recital. So far as the 
keeping back of reinforcements goes. General MeClellan had done his best that Pope 
should not "get out of his scrape." But there remains a toucli beyond this. Pope's 
ammunition, rations and forage were now exhausted, and he sent to Washington to 
procure supplies. General MeClellan was to fill the orders. You shall now see how 
he did it. 

To the request for ammmunition. General MeClellan telegraphs at 1 : 10 p. m. : 
"I know nothing of the calibre of Pope's artillery." Yet he was witliin two minutes 
telegraphic communication with the Ordnance Bureau at Washington, where he 
mifi;ht have had full information on tliis point. 

To the request for rations. General Franklin replies : 

"I have been instructed by General MeClellan to inform you that he will have all the available 
wagons at Alexandria loaded with rations for your troops, and all of the cars also, as soon as you 
will send in a cavalry escort to A'e.vandria as a guard to tee traiu. 

I cannot better set forth this mitter in its true bearings than by giving the 
following passage from General Pope's official report : 

" About daylight of the 30lh, I received a note from General Franklin, written by direction of 
Croneral McOlellan, informing me thai rations and forage momM be loaded into all the available 
wagons and cars at Alexaddria, .is soon as I would send bacd a cavalry escort to guard the trains. 
Such a letter, when we were fighting the enemy, and Alexandria was swarming with troops, needs 
no comment. Bad as was the condition of our cavalry, I was in no situation to spare troops from 
the front, nor could tliey have gone to Alexandria and retunred within the time hy which lee 
must ha^ve tiad provisions or h.avef lien hack in the direction i<f Washington; nor do I sei 
zc/iat service cavalry could hare rendered in guarding railroad trains.'^ 

I must let this close tliis exposition of the extraordinai'V series of transactions 
at Alexandria, in which I have done little else than allow official dispatches to tell 
their own story. 1 leave tlie i eader to form his own judgment and pi'onounce his 
own verdict. But one remark re'maina. 1 liave liitherto had occasion to call m 
question General McClellan's capacity. The «unduct here set forth invites a ques- 
tion of his loyalty. I cannot enter General McClellan's private thought, and pluck 
out the "heart of his mystery." It is possible that bis conduct at Alexandria was 
nothing more than the effect of heartless selfishness and ambition, which can lead 



29 

up to the very door of treason without passing within. It is now certain that it 
was the avowed purpose of McClelian and his friends so to arrange matters as that 
the army should, to use their expression, " fall back into his arms" at Washington. 
For this end it was essential that Pope should not obtain reinforcements, for had he 
received the thirty thousand troops that lay idle at Alexandria, he would beyond a 
doubt have beaten the rebel army. That he should do so was manifestly not at all 
in General McClellan's jirogramioe. 

Looking at General McClellau's conduct as it stands revealed in his own dispatches, 
I can only say to him, " if this be loyalty, make the most of it." 



CLOSING SCENES IN McCLELLAN'S CAREER. 

If, now, after the expose I have made of the conduct of General McClelian in the 
extraordinary series of transactions recorded in the preceeding chapter, the ques- 
tion be asked, why it was that, after behavior which in any other country in the 
world would have caused him to be courtmarliaied, we find that general not only 
NOT called to account, but presently restored to the full command of the Army of 
the Potomac, 1 fraokly reply that this question must be left to history to an- 
swer. History will not fail to ask the question, but the answer will be given both 
with a fuller knowledge of all the facts in the case than we now possess, and under 
circumstances when those considerations of the public good that now put a check 
on our venturing on even such revelations as it is in our power to make, will no 
longer be in force. We can, however, anticipate the veidict in so far as to say that 
history will recognize that, in his action in this matter, Mr. Lincoln was moved only 
by the purest and most patriotic moiives, and if his yielding of intellectual convic- 
tions wliich he must even then have formed, indicated a blanieable weakness, he 
erred only from the excess of his unselfish anxiety for the public good, at a time 
when things and the thoughts of men were plunged into ulter chaos and collapse. 
Pope had now " got out of his scrape " — as best he could, and the army had fal- 
len back to Washington, where the arrangements of McClellan's friends to have it 
"fall into his arms" were crowned with all the success they could have desired. 
Pope fell back to the works in front of Washington on the 2d of September; on the 
same, McClelian took command, and Lee, filing off the left, proceeded to do what Gen- 
ei-al McClelian, in his first memorandum, had staked his military sagacity "no capa- 
ble general" would do — that is, he crossed the Potomac to make his first invasion 
of the loyal States. 

It is not my purpose to review the Maryland campaign with that fullness of de- 
tail that has characterized the analysis of the previous portion of Genei-al McClel- 
lan's career, for my aim is not so much to dissect tiie historical facts themselves as 
to dissect General McClellan's character and conduct as revealed in these facts. 
Now, in this regard, what remains funishes really nothing essentially new. We are 
presented with the same characteristics of genius and generalship which we have 
already discovered — the same unreadiness to move promptly and act vigorously ; 
Uie same clamoring for " more troops " before advancing; the same refer'ence to 
the great superiority of numbers on the part of the enemy. It is, after all, a dismal 
story, and has probably already tested the human stomach to its utmost limits. 

In the Maryland invasion, the intentions of Lee, after striking Frederick, appear to 
have aimed exclusively at the capture of Harper's Ferry. His combinations for this 
end are now fully revealed by an order of Lee's found at Frederick, and wliich dis- 
closes the whole programme of operatioiis. By this it appears that the commands 
of Jackson, Lougstreet, McLaws, and Walker — that is, in fact, the whole rebel army 
with the exception of the division of D. H. Hill — were assigned parts in the cap- 
ture of Harper's Ferry. The single division of D. H. Hill and part of Stuart's cav- 
alry formed the rearguard destined to check &n\ pursuit of McClelian, while the 
■whole rebel force should move to the accomplishment of the end pi'oposed. 

In a military point of view this was a bold operation, and the rebel general should 
have been made to pay dearly for venturing upon it. And yet, if we consider that 
the combinations of a commander are necessarily largely influenced by his knowl- 
edge of the character of his opponent, we must admit that Lee, aware of the tardy 
genius of McClelian, was authorized in taking a step which, against a vigorous op- 
ponent, ought to have seeured his destruction. At any rate, the event fully justi- 
fied his action. McClelian, intrusted with the duty of meeting and crushing the 
invading army, moved out by slow and easy stages — at an average of six miles a day 
— end accommodated Lee with all the time he needed. Of course, he was able to 



30 

accomplish his designed object — the capture of Harper's Ferry, its garrisons and 
stores; but connected with this, and General McClellan's responsibility for it, there 
are one or two circumstances that deserve more detailed examination. 

There is no doubt that the moment Lee crossed tlie Potomac, the forces at Har- 
per's Ferry were placed in a false position and should have been promptly with- 
drawn. But we find no recommendation to this effect by General McClellau during 
the period in which it was possible to carry it out. His first utterance on the sub- 
ject is in a dispatch to General Halleck, dated " Camp near Rockville, Sept. 10," 
in the following terms : 

"Colonel Miles is at or near Harper's Ferry, as I understand, with nine ttiousand troops He 
can do nothing where he is, but could be of great service il' ordered to join me. I suggest that he 
be ordered to join me by the most practicable route." 

Now let us consider what the result of the execution of this order would have 
bepn. Lee's instructions to Jackson, Longstreet, &c., to move to the capture of 
Harper's Ferry, are dated the day previous, Sept. 9. An order to Colonel Miles "to 
join him by the most practicable route," as recommended by McClellao, would, 
therefore, have simply brought, his force into the arras of the rebel army, and Jackson 
would have been saved the trouble of even the semblance of investment he thought 
proper to make of Harper's Ferry. In this state of facts General Halleck's reply of 
the same day to the dispatch of MeClellan is as sensible as could possibly have been 
given : 

" There is no way for Colonel Miles to join you at present ; his only chance is to defend his 
works till you can open communication with him." 

"Till you can open communication with him ;" but with a " pursuit" at the rate 
of six miles a day against an enemy moving at the rate of twenty, was there much 
chance to " open communication 'f Moreover, MeClellan lost the opportunity 
offered him of moving bj^ the direct route to Harper's Ferr\-. Lee calculated that 
by threatening with his rear guard the passage into Pennsylvania he would draw 
MeClellan off fi'om the flank march wliich was open to him to Harper's Ferry. In 
this calculation he was correct, and while he was engaged with a feeble detachment 
of the rebel force at South Mountain, the garrison at Harper's Ferry, 12,000 strong, 
with all its vast military stores, on the 14th fell into the hands of Jackson. As a 
military tribunal has pronounced judgment on this sad affair, there is no need of 
going into it beva ; it is proper, however, to cite the conclusion of its finding, which 
is in 1 he following terms: 

" Tlic commission has freely remarked on Colonel Miles, an old officer, who has been killed in 
the service of his country, and it cannot from any motives of delicacy refrain from censuring those 
in high command, when it thinks »uch censure deserved. The General in-Chief has testified that 
General MeClellan, after having received orders to repel the enemy invading the 8tate of Mary- 
land, marclied only six miles per day, on an average, wh^n pursuing this invading army. The 
General-in-Chief also testifies that in his opinion General MeClellan could and slionld have re- 
lieved and 2}rotected Ilarper^s Ferry, atul in this opinion the commission fully concur.^'' 

General McClellan's dispatches of this period, carefully suppressed by him from 
his " Report," show that from the first step he took out of Washington in pursuit of 
Lee, he was haunted by those horrible visions of the fabulous legions of the enemy 
that we have seen constantly oppressing him. While still at Rockville, under date 
of the 9th September, we find him writing : " From such information as can be ob- 
tained, Jackson and Longstreet have about a hundred and ten thousand, (110,000) 
men of all arms near Frederick, with some cavalry this side." 

The monstrosity of this estimate is readily apparent from the fact that even had 
the Corps of Jackson and Longstreet been at the full (40,000 men each) their united 
commands could only have numbered eighty thousand ; but it is perfectly well 
known that, after the series of severe actions through which they had gone, their 
corps did not count one-half their complement. But General MeClellan was des- 
tined to go several thousand better on this estimate. Reversing the usual maxim 
that 

"'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view," 

the nearer MeClellan approached the enemy, the vaster his proportions grew. On 
the 11th we find him stating that "almost the entire rebel army in Virginia, 
amounting to not less than 120,000 men, is in the vicinity of Frederick city ;" and 
a day or two afterward that army had resumed its old Chickahominy proportions 
of " 180,000 men !" Now with regard to Lee's army in Maryland, we have infor- 
mation more than usually precise respecting its strength. It all passed through 
Frederick city, where it was carefully counted, and where it was found to number, 
how many do you suppose ? It was found to number \>recisely Jifti/ Jive thousand 
effective men I Remember, now, that McClellan's old Peninsular army, swelled in 



81 

Washington by a great part of the command of Pope, numbered at this time over a 
htmdred and twenty thousand men — that is, that McClellan's force outnumbered the 
enemy's more than two to one — and yon will have the proper test by which to judge 
of his geceralsliip in the actions which followed. 

The rear guard left by Lee at South Mountain fully succeeded in delaying the ad- 
vance of McClellan until such time as Jackson andHill had compelled the surrender of 
Harper's Ferry and the capitulation of the garrison. But even after aiiiving before 
Antietam Creek he had still an opportunity on the 16th of September — the day be- 
fore the battle — to strike Lee before Jackson returned. This opportunity, also, he 
threw away. Says an English military critic, who always deals tenderly with 
LIcClellan: "Examining the proceedings of the 16th of September, by the account 
most favorable to the Federal leader, ^ere can be no doubt that the extreme cau- 
tion which he then displayed caused him to throw away the opportunity of crush- 
ing the enemy, which the resistance ©f Harper's Ferry, brief though it was, placed 
before him." 

During that night Jackson arrived with his corps, and the next day, September 
lYth, when the movement of Hooker drove McClellan into battle, Lee had his whole 
force massed at Antietam. But his whole force was doubly outnumbered by that 
of McClellan. The battle was delivered without order or etiseinble — the attacks 
being made feebly and in driblets. Says General Sumner, in regard to the manner 
of conducting the battle of Antietam : 

" I have always believed that, instead of sending these troops into that action in driblets as they 
were sent, if General McClellan had authorized me to march these 40,000 men on the left flank o 
the enemy, we could not have failed to throw them right back in front of the other divisions o 
our army on our left — Burnside's, Franklin's, and Porter's corps. As it was, we went in, division 
after division, imtil even one of my own divisions was forced out, the other two drove the enemy 
and held their positions. My intention was to have proceeded entirely on by their left and move 
down, bringing them right in front of Burnside, Franklin and Porter. 

Question. And all escape for the enemy would have been Impossible? 

Answer. I think so.'* 

On the night of the 18th the enemy, abandoned their position, their ammunition 
being exhausted, and returned across the Potomac into Virginia, without molestation. 
McClellan slowly followed and took up a position along the Potomac, on the Mary- 
land side. Lee established himself at the mouth of the valley, just south of Har- 
per's Ferry. 

If any combination of circumstances can be conceived calculated to prompt a gen- 
eral to energetic preparations to retrieve his tarnished laurels, it was such an ex- 
perience as General McClellen had passed through. The campaign toward Richmond, 
undertaken on his favorite line and began with loud promises of the apeed}^ annihi- 
lation of the enemy, had ended in that enemy's assuming the initiative, invading 
the territory of the loyal States and compelling McClellan's hasty retreat to cover 
the capital. The country, which bad lavished its resources to furnish that General 
with an incomparable army, felt the profoundest humiliation and mortification 
at the disastrous disappointment of its just expectations, and after Lee's retreat be- 
gan to look anxiously for a blow to be struck that would retrieve the national 
honor. Antietam having been fought about the middle of September, there was 
a prospect of a season of a couple of months, during which the state of the roads 
and the wt^ather would favor military operations, and cne would suppose that 
he would eagerly avail himself of this opportunity to strike a blow. As usual 
•with him he was during this period constantly promising to do so. On the 27th he 
wrote to General Halleck : " When the river rises so that the enemy cannot 
cross in force, I purpose concentrating the army somewhere near Harper's Ferry 
and then moving," etc. Well, shortly after, this condition was fulfilled, and still 
he remained inactive. The btirden of all his communications of this period was for 
more men, and still more men, though he had now under hiscommand an army 150,000 
strong. On the 6th of October he was peremptorily ordered to "cross the Potomac and 
give battle to the enemy, or drive him South. Your army ynust move now while 
the roads are good." Week after week passed without the order being obeyed. — 
To cover up his disobedience he has much to say in his Report of the deficiency of 
the army in shoes, clothing, etc.; but the hollowness of this pretense is fully dis- 
played in the letters of General Meigs and Halleck, and even by his own chief 
quartermaster. General Ingalls. Besides, even if there were slight deficiencies in 
this respect, as there will be in every army, (though no army in the world was ever 
supplied as McClellan's was,) it would still have been better for him to have moved 
with this drawback than, by waiting to supply the deficit, to throw the time of 
moving over to the bad season. Said a corps commander in his army to the writer, 

♦ Report on the Conduct of the War, vol. 1, p. 8^. 



32 

on the rainy November morning when the movement finally began, " We could 
better have advanced in September or October with the army barefoot than we can 
now perfectly supplied I " 

After nearly two months delay, General McClellan was pried from his base by an 
imperative order, just as he had been pried out of Washington by the like means in 
the preceding April, and he began his forward movement by the inner line, east of 
the Blue Ridge. But it soon became evident from the slowness of his movements, 
the spirit in which he acted, and the complications into wJiich he had plunged 
himself with the military authorities at Washington, that no good results could be 
expected from his campaign. He was accordingly ordered to resign command of 
the army at Warrenton, on the 5th of November. 

Thus closes a career certainly among the most extraordinary on record, and not 
less extraordinary from the record General McClellan has given of it to the world in 
the Report which has formed the subject-matter of this critique. But it is not yet 
possible for any man to follow out in the complex web of historic cause and effect 
all the results that have come, and may yet come, from that career. These results 
are more and other than military, and they did not cease when his military career 
closed. If, having failed as a military commander, he had left us merely the legacy 
of disaster we inherited from him, if we had been only destined to find that the 
man we had chosen for a leader in the dread ordeal into which the nation was 
plunged by the war was a mere blunderer and incompetent, we might curse our 
folly and thank heaven for having raised up other men to fight our battles. But he 
left us another heritage than that of military calamities. He darkened men's minds, 
and paralyzed their arms, with doubts and fears. The nation had put forth its 
strength lavishly only to see it wasted ; but we could have borne this, had not the 
very springs of confidence been sapped by the charge that all this waste, these dis- 
asters, were due to the incompetence and malevolence of the Administration. While 
still in command, McClellan lent the weight of his endorsement to the rising spirit of 
faction which sought to throw all the blame of his failures upon an Administration 
which the people were taught to believe had by its influence baulked all his bril- 
liant plans, and withheld the material needed to their execution. On being removed 
from command. McClellan put these slanders formally on record in his so-called 
Report. He has ended by becoming the leader of a party which, going on the effect 
produced by these vilifications of the Administration, seeks to obtain control of the 
destinies of this nation. I have attempted to expose the falsity of these charges, 
if not with the expectation of silencing the clamor of men seeking their greatness in 
their country's ruin, at least with the hope of disabusing honest men of mistaken 
notions long assiduously inculcated, and anticipating for the military conduct of 
Mr. Lincoln's Administration a part of that justice which history will accord it. 



